Cat in the furnace and budgie smugglers

Canberra: Day 3

We started off our third day in Canberra with Andrew making us a "traditional" Aussie breakfast of Vegemite on toast and Milo to drink. Vegemite is basically processed yeast that Aussies are obsessed with and Milo is a malted barley drink that is a lot like Quick, except that the barley doesn't really dissolve, so you end up eating a lot of it. I really liked the Vegemite, while I wasn't a huge fan...we both thought the Milo was pretty tasty though!

(Enjoying our Vegemite toast)

After breakfast, we all got changed and ready to head out for the day. Sarah and Andrew planned on driving us around more of Canberra, so we started by driving to the top of Black Mountain to a lookout where we could see the cite centre sprawling below us.

From there, we drove to the Australian War Memorial and walked around. It is a beautiful memorial site with a reflection pool, a memorial wall, and a grave of an unknown soldier.

(Memorial wall where people have placed poppies by the names of their loved ones)

(Reflecting pool with the eternal flame...it's there, just hard to see)

(Mosaic of an Australian nurse)

Then, we drove down to see the Old Parliament building and to see the "Aboriginal Embassy" which is actually a tent city that has been set up across the street from the Old Parliament building for over 20 years. The Aboriginal people and elders are there because they want representation in Parliament...it is amazing to see how much racism and inequality still exists in this country. Up until the last 1960s, the children of the Aboriginal people were still being removed from their homes and it wasn't until three years ago that there an official apology given to them by Parliament.

(Aboriginal tent embassy)

After our Canberra tour, we headed home to have dinner and to get ready to go out for the evening. Sarah had three different stops planned for the evening. First was an Irish pub, followed by an Aussie bar called Phoenix that had a great live band playing, and finally we went to a place called PJ O'Reilly's where they have karaoke every night. One of Andrew and Sarah's friends, Damien, signed us and Sarah up to sing "Born in the USA"...we couldn't believe it!

(The girls)

(Damien doing karaoke)

Somehow we managed to survive singing and had a great night out overall. We arrived home in the wee hours of the morning and headed off to bed. Another great Aussie night...

Cheers!

Jess and Erin