I'm sitting in the
back of an old school Mercedes next to SG with Ian at the wheel and Joan in the
passenger seat. We're on the road to
Sydney. Matt Chandler is winding up a sermon
in my earbuds and eucalypt trees are whizzing by. We just left McDonalds (Maccas - read with an
Aussie accent) where Ian got a chocolate thickshake and Joan and I got hot
drinks.
What the heck am I
doing, you ask. Oh, we're just on a
little roadtrip with the host parents to Canberra and Sydney. As an aside, Canberra (Can-bruh) is the capital of Australia and is
located in the Australian Capital Territory (like Washington and the
D.C.). It is almost halfway in between
Sydney and Melbourne because in the early days of settlement, the two cities
couldn't agree on where to put the capital.
The political impasse was resolved by building a city in between. While there are supposedly some beautiful
government buildings there, Canberra isn't much to get excited about.
The mileage sign
just said Sydney is 562 kilometers away.
I don't really know what that means without doing the calculations. We won't go to Sydney until tomorrow anyway. We're staying with Ian and Joan's friends in
Canberra tonight. Someone's mother is
supposedly cooking up a storm in anticipation of our arrival. I think I'm going to like these people.
As far as travel
conditions go, it's been a positively dismal day. (Is that a contradiction in terms?) Drizzly rain, gray clouds, the whole
bit. While I generally loathe this kind
of weather, it makes for perfect rainbow hunting conditions. While Victoria has much more rain than any
place I've lived, it also has the most rainbows. Not half an hour ago, we spotted a towering
arch, reaching from ground to ground. It
glowed like a box of spanking new Crayolas.
Spectacular.
We'll be up around
Sydney until Saturday. I don't know what
all we'll be seeing, but Ian typed up an itinerary, which we may or may not
stick to, knowing Ian. Who knew I'd find
myself hurtling down a freeway with some of my favorite 70+ friends on a road
trip?! Not me.
More to come,
LMS
Parliament House, Canberra
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