The museum

Hi everyone! For all my whinging about Canberra, I'm not even there anymore. After the first week, I decided to take a few days off and come down to the south coast of New South Wales, to Eden where Andy's parents live. I'm here staying with them (and being totally spoilt, with vegan brownies and trips to the beach)--and I'm getting some really good writing done here since they've set me up with my own bedroom and a separate 'office' with a big writing desk and wireless internet. I'll be here until Saturday, and then I'll finish up my trip with another week in Canberra. But in the name of not getting too far behind, I wanted to show some photos of my trip so far.

While I was in Canberra, I was working every day at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, or AIATSIS. They are located near the university, on the Acton Peninsula--right next to the National Museum. The other day I took an extended lunch break to poke around some of the exhibits.

I loved the look of this emu, made entirely out of barbed wire.

And seeing 20,000+ year old stone axes took my breath away.

The political cartoon exhibition was a funny way to review the big issues of 2008.

And the whimsical Garden of Australian Dreams was a nice break from the air conditioned exhibits inside (even though it was 38, I was more comfortable outside than in!).

In the garden is this figure of a gnome-like creature. It's called an Antipodean. Before Australia was seen by Europeans, they had this idea that there must be a large continent in the southern hemisphere in order to balance out the landmass in the north (or else the world would be top heavy and tip over, I guess!). They imagined these guys were the inhabitants of this mysterious southern land.
If you ever get to Canberra, I highly recommend a visit to the museum. It's a lot of fun!