Tuesday...10 May 2011

Well I couldn't blog last night, the blog was down for service or overfull or some such thing according to my knowledgeable guru! So now I have to play catch up.
Yesterday we started by delivering the hosts car to the dealership to have some unscheduled repairs done. He and Himself set out to go to somewhere and came to a halt when the temp guage on the Subaru went higher and higher! So we switched cars and went sightseeing.
We began by going to AMSA, for a personally guided tour and boy was that interesting. The work and detail that goes into finding anyone or anything like a plane or boat that is listed as missing is incredible and fascinating. Computer screens from one side of the room to the other, all with maps or other information on them. If you ever have to set off an EPERB or PLB you can relax knowing this mob are on the job. They can locate your beacon and have someone on their way to you very quickly anywhere in Australia, or its coastal waters. We had lunch then went past the Lodge and an area full of embassies to get to Questacon.  Just us and a few hundred schoolchildren. Cannot complain, the place is designed to get children of all ages interesting in science and how things work and to ask lots and lots of questions. The entire complex is hands on with plenty of staff on hand to suggest ideas or ways to try to make things work. I went into the earthquake room and experienced a 5.2 shake. We saw lightning being made, tornados, tsunamis etc. Brilliant. Definately worth the money for the school camp/excursions.

Today we went to the Mint. I have been there before but I particularly wanted to go to the gift shop as I have been trying to get a set of christmas pudding money and every time I saw them in a post shop  catalogue they had sold out, even working for the post office did not get me one of these sets. Today I finally got one!!! Oh and we had a look at the mint working hard making money for all of us to spend. 

We went to the ANU (Australian National University) for lunch with our hostess who works there. Then we went to the National Art Gallery, and guess what, unlike a lot of other places in Canberra,  the mint and the art gallery were free entry! Once again there was so much to take in, way too much for the little time we have. The gallery is one of those places you need to go to for a while every day or every week for probably a year to be able to take in everything in it. Still, undaunted we set off and covered a huge amount of ground, we are fairly sure we went into most galleries within the actual Gallery.

I got to sit in front of Jackson Pollocks "Blue Poles". I quite like it. Vibrant colors.

I saw paintings I was taught about in school, originals by Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubben, Claude Monet, Arthur Streeton, an entire collection of 26 Sidney Nolan paintings about Ned Kelly. I saw several paintings by Albert Namijira. I made the mistake of saying I liked a particular piece on sight and on closer inspection discovered it was by Yoko Ono... I saw work by Andy Warhol and Dahl and Picasso. Wow I saw some original Picasso's. Every time I close  my eyes I see the colors and the sheer volume of work. I am hooked.

Next door to the National Gallery is the National Portrait Gallery but we did not fit that in to todays effort. Maybe another time.