more canberra... grrrrr

Tent embassy, High Court, New Parliament, Old Parliament, About to get rained on


So obviously I have internet now but I can't use msn or my web cam for now. I have to download a different msn cuz I have windows Live but apparently msn 7.5 will work. This school is really behind the times. If you have windows vista, your internet won't work and you have to wait a week for some tech guy to come down and do it for you or spend 5 hours to figure it out yourself. We were talking about the phases of culture shock today and I have discovered that I am in stage 2 known as hating everything. I hate aussies and I hate this school and I definitely hate this rez. There are giant spiders (we're talkin the size of my fist big) in this rez. They aren't dangerous but they are huge and hairy. It is very stressful. The fire alarm went off yesterday cuz a girl had a huge spider in her room and was trying to kill it with some sort of aerosol spray but it was to close to the smoke detector.

So mostly all the cool people I've met are fellow exchange students. There are 2 from the U of S (Jaret and Cindy), a bunch from ontario and the USA, and a couple from Finland. I've met a couple aussies who are really cool (mainly Joe from Byron Bay) but mostly they just keep to themselves. That's why I don't like aussies right now.

Yesterday and today we were all going nuts from being on campus too much so we took a couple trips into the City. This city is set up really dumb. They have it so that the suburbs are like seperate towns as if the city grew and enveloped them, but this city was a planned city and has been the same size for like 50 years. Anyway, yesterday we went down to the mall and walked around downtown a bit. It wasn't all that interesting. Today we went to the parliament buildings and saw Old Parliament House, the High Court building and the new Parliament House. We even saw Prime Minister John Howard and all the other MP's in question period. Sadly we missed the exciting part when Mr. Somebody of Brisbane did something to get suspended for 24 hours from parliament. We just got there for the vote and decision that he would be suspended. But it was still pretty neat. And Bill Bryson would be pleased to know that there is now considerable security to enter the building however, Cindy walked through the metal detector with her keys in her pocket and it didn't go off so the quality of security is still questionable. Outside the parliament buildings we talked to some Aboriginal guy who is part of a protest outside the buildings that has been going on for like 12 years. They camp outside the buildings and tell passers-by their story. Its a terrible story. The government makes it seem like they are doing tonnes to help the Aborigines but they are just making things worse. I won't get into details... it's a long story. Anyway, we got lost trying to find the bus stop to go home and got soaked in the rain but everything was really cool and we will probably be going back. But I have to get up in 6 1/2 hours to sign up for this surf weekend the study abroad office is holding so I will leave it a that for tonight.