All sorts of animal sightings

"This is how stereotypes are born," David said, as we walked a few blocks from his house and came upon a mob of wild kangaroos in a field. "You won't see this in any other city." This is largely because Canberra (if you're reading out loud, just pretend that "e" isn't there) has a lot of green spaces-- islands, central reservations, traffic circles-- where kangaroos can graze.

They were cute. Two of them were wrestling-- it looked very elegant, as if they were fencing.

Two days later, I'd get even closer to kangaroos, even pet them, although those would be in a nature park rather than in the wild. There, I'd see a joey climb back into its mom's pouch graze directly from it. I'd also see wombats, wallabies, a tasmanian devil, dingos and koalas. But it was still very cool to see kangaroos in the wild.

David also said people wouldn't be as gratuitously friendly in the cities, but I haven't found that to be true, yet.

***

On Friday morning upon finishing up work, two colleagues and I headed to the Australian War Memorial/museum, which is renowned (up there with Imperial War Museum) and IMHO lives up to that renown. From there, I met up with David, whom I'd met many, many years ago when we were both traveling in Europe, and we miraculously kept in touch, which is amazing because now I just wouldn't bother and I imagine he wouldn't either. Anyway, the sociability of the younger me paid off for the jaded, aloof me, and I had a friend in Canberra. We went to the botanic garden, looked out at the city from the telephone tower, walked around his neighborhood (where we saw kangaroos), and met up with his girlfriend for dinner. The next day, we toured the old and new Parliament Houses, which were amazingly accessible to the public. Outside New Plmt house was a wirish-looking representation of Australia's coat of arms, the kangaroo and the emu. "We're probably the only country that eats our coat of arms," David said.

Australia's a haphazard melee of natural and planned, and Canberra was planned as a city. The government was planned picking and choosing elements of both the U.S. and U.K. systems. Australia's great political scandal (on the level of Watergate) happened in 1975 when the Governor General-- the Queen's representative, a ceremonial, figurehead post-- dismissed the elected government. Australia survived the "Dismissal," as it came to be called, and moved on.

Saturday afternoon I arrived in Melbourne, where it was pouring. Locals were thrilled for the rain, as most of the country is undergoing a years-old draught. I was happy for them but it sucked for me.

Melbourne is not user-friendly. This was foreshadowed to me by two locals getting on an elevator at the train station. Before they even saw me, they said, "it must be awful being a tourist!" then saw me looking at them ironically and said, "oh, are you a tourist? isn't it impossible to find your way around?" And it was. The public transit system isn't designed for people who don't already understand it. Where was that helpful busybody type when I needed him? Even today, I had a hard time finding my way and two different train system employees gave me conflicting directions (I ended up walking). I'll now quit boring you with such things, lest you think I've completely lost my travel note mojo, which I fear I have anyway, but let me not make that too clear too soon.

I really like Melbourne. It has an old world feel although it's the newest world city I've ever visited. Busy, lively, chic, cosmopolitan... it's just a fun place to walk. Even people on the bus from the airport were carrying surfboards, as were people just walking down the street in the city, particularly in St. Kilda.

I walked a few hours in the rain and had had enough, so I decided to do something with myself the next day, and booked a tour to Phillip Island to see the penguins come up to land. Land is where they come to be social and mate, and they do it in the evening when they're less visible to predators. These fairy penguins-- the smallest in the world-- are blue on the back rather than black. When in the sea, they look like the water to a predatory bird, and like the sky to a seal or shark, but when on land they're exposed so they come out at night. So that morning, after walking out to St. Kilda beach and back, I boarded a tour minivan to Phillip Island, with stops at a winery and then a nature preserve/petting zoo.

The penguins were tiny-- they're sooooo cute. Their little bellies almost glow in the dark, no wonder they hurry onto shore. They come in rafts for safety in numbers, apart from a few bold ones that make the trip on their own.

True to myself, I wanted to beat the crap out of the screaming children (and their parents), who were disobeying the ranger's request to keep still and quiet so as not to scare the penguins. For better or for worse, I exercised restraint.