Teach an old dog new tricks....

Spent a couple of days in Canberra, the Capital of Australia. Very clean and
beautiful city. Did a couple of touristy things...museums, nature reserves etc.
Visited with my daughter's friends and talked about the differences between living
here and at home. The biggest I found is that many residences have a underground
water storage tank, some over 100000 liters capacity just for the house! They also
said their kids learn
Chinese in school since China is their biggest trading partner. We did notice a
lot of Asian restaurants, so to taste the culture we tried one. My daughter who has
lived here for 8 months had the chopsticks mastered long ago, but I could not get
the hang of it and had to ask for a knife and fork. I won't show the aftermath of
my attempt with chopsticks!

Off to Melbourne tomorrow.

Ben

Our kids like to sample all types of food and use chopsticks well. Me, simple meat and taters is fine.

Were they eating dog?
Dogs driving tractors.

I was not over impressed with Canberra when we visited in 2017. We had a poor experience with the place where we stayed, but if I were able to choose a city anywhere in the world to live in it would be Melbourne or Adelaide. Great people, lovely cities. Take a couple of hours and visit The Shrine in Melbourne just opposite the Botanical Gardens, a memorial that will move you to tears.
We talked to one of the attendants and he explained why the Australians are so caring about their war dead. We in Europe have the battlefields in easy reach if we care to visit and some of the fallen were able to be repatriated but the Aussies were taken from small communities and the fallen never returned as distances were so great. They would never see their loved ones again and possibly never know where they were laid to rest.

My family lost three close relatives in the Great War including my step-grandfather, one is buried with a group of Australians in France. Another Australian cousin was wounded at Gallipoli and died in hospital in Australia after being repatriated.

The tram system is great and cheap to get around the city, takes you to all the museums and down to the dockside shopping areas. Visit the Queen Victoria Market and the Italian Quarter for great coffee and pizza.

Brian