Canberra is the National Capitol of Australia. I am sitting in the reading room of the splendid National Library. Today is my true birthday and not a day later were I in the US.
Already this has been a special day for me, my second day staying with my second daughter (my youngest child), Elizabeth, and her family. I have just come from morning coffer with her, in the cafe at the original Federal Parliament House, a low-slung, white painted, and stately building and now the National Museum. A little eerie, conversing with her about her soon-to-be-written essay in her study program on librarianship, as if surrounded by a cloud of long gone politicians!
The new Parliament Building is much more splendorous and cost a great deal more. I plan to tour it with Elizabeth next week.
The day is fine, somewhat cloudy and, despite the nearness of Winter, comfortably warm (about 60 deg F or 12 deg C). So here I am, starting out on a new posting for my blog (LifeAccording...this time). When my net book battery wanes, I will 'do' the newspaper room and then the latest exhibition (the Prayer Books of the House of Rothschild) After that, a walk beside Lake Burley Griffin and then lunch. How very pleasant!
Burley Griffin was the architect who won the world competition for the design of this city. What an excellent job he did of it! During the struggles leading up to Federation in 1901, the national capital was at times in Sydney and at other times in Melbourne, the capitals of the two earliest and more prominent States (New South Wales and Victoria). Finally, after very nearly the two states coming to blows, the site of the capital was settled between the two, a little out of the way.
In the 19th Century, the states (formed independently of each other) had little to do with each other, the distance between settlements being quite vast compared with the New England towns in the US. To go from my home city, Adelaide, to Sydney necessitated a risky sea voyage of more than a week or two. I did this, together with four other crew, in a 33 foot sailing boat in the early 1980s, taking 11 days of continuous sailing, including one very impressive storm, lasting two days. The southern coastline, being the Southern Ocean and at the edge of the Roaring Forties (winds), is littered with very many shipwrecks.
I very likely will write more about my time here over the next week or so.
Until then, au revoir!
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