CANBERRA - STARTING NOVEMBER IN THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL
Canberra is definately not the most visited city in Australia. But it is the Nation's Capital. Or the "Bush Capital", as they also call it ( and this has nothing to do with George W. Bush !). When it was selected as capital in 1908, it had 5.000 inhabitants. Today about 400.000 people live here. And it is spread over an area of about 100 km in each direction. They claim that it has 120 "satellite cities" or suburbs. The design of the city was won in an international competition by an American architect from Chicago before World War I. By the way, he ran into some difficulties with the local politicians - just as Jørn Utzon did many years later with the Sydney Opera House.
We have now tried to see and discover the city as much as we can during our two days here. The Old Parliament House, which is very nice and now called "Museum of Democracy" ( funny thought that you put democracy in museum :-) ). The new and very impressive Parliament House, which was built from 1981. And which our guide told us was so expensive that Australia could not afford to build it today. Probably not true. We also visited the very nice and big National Art Gallery, which also includes very interesting art works by the aboriginal population.
Talking about politics it is interesting that Australians are very keen on telling jokes about politicians. All the time. One of the better jokes we heard was that a new political party is about to start. What is its name? The Party for Self-Interest ! They expect it to become very popular :-)
The most interesting part of our discovery was our visit to the Australian War Memorial. We have seen many war memorials in many countries over the years. This one is for sure the best and most interesting of them all. It is a memorial for all the 106.000 Australian soldiers killed in the wars the country has been part of since its foundation in 1901. Including 62.000 killed in World War I. During that war Australia had just 7 million inhabitants. One million of them were directly involved in the war. Imagine what impact that had on society at that time. The Australian forces were during WWI in particular involved in two major and very costly battles: that of Gallipoli in Turkey (which they lost) and Pouzières in Somme in France (which they won). One of the key battles in Pouzières was fought by a regiment from Perth, where my daughter and her family are now living. And in the very same battle Liselotte's German relative Franz was killed 21 years old. You learn a lot from working with genealogy! Also that the world is very small !
As most people know modern Australia was to a large extent built by deported British convicts ( prisoners ). Between 1787 and 1868 England sent altogether 166.000 convicts to Australia on 806 ships. Why from 1787? Because they had until then been sent to the British colonies in America. But after the Americans had won their independence they wanted no more convicts from Britain. The then English minister for home affairs, Lord Sydney, got the idea to send them to Australia instead. They arrived here - most of them on one-way tickets. And very hard work was expecting them. All major Australian cities except Adelaide were built by these convicts. Not Canberra, though. It was founded 50 years after the last convicts arrived. By the way, we have understood that genealogy is not that popular among Australians today. Perhaps because they do not feel happy to risk to find out that their ancestors came here as prisoners!
And finally a more positive story from this century. Everybody in Denmark and in Australia know that the Danish crown prince Frederik met his Tasmanian wife Mary, while they were both in Sydney for the Olympic Games in 2000. But do you know exactly how it happened? We met a very nice guide here, Michael, on the hop-on-hop-off buses in Canberra. He claimed to know exactly how it happened: Frederik was in a bar together with some friends. At the next table a group of girls had a good time. Surprise, surprise: they all started chatting together. And at a certain moment Mary asked Frederik: What are doing? With a sort of shy smile he replied: I am actually a prince! Now, in Australian this is often the answer you give, when you want to pull somebody's leg. But Mary responded immediately by saying: "I am cindarella" - and she took off one of her shoes! Frederik reacted like speedy Gonzales, picked up the shoe and put it back on her foot again!
The rest of the story is well known !
We have now tried to see and discover the city as much as we can during our two days here. The Old Parliament House, which is very nice and now called "Museum of Democracy" ( funny thought that you put democracy in museum :-) ). The new and very impressive Parliament House, which was built from 1981. And which our guide told us was so expensive that Australia could not afford to build it today. Probably not true. We also visited the very nice and big National Art Gallery, which also includes very interesting art works by the aboriginal population.
Talking about politics it is interesting that Australians are very keen on telling jokes about politicians. All the time. One of the better jokes we heard was that a new political party is about to start. What is its name? The Party for Self-Interest ! They expect it to become very popular :-)
The most interesting part of our discovery was our visit to the Australian War Memorial. We have seen many war memorials in many countries over the years. This one is for sure the best and most interesting of them all. It is a memorial for all the 106.000 Australian soldiers killed in the wars the country has been part of since its foundation in 1901. Including 62.000 killed in World War I. During that war Australia had just 7 million inhabitants. One million of them were directly involved in the war. Imagine what impact that had on society at that time. The Australian forces were during WWI in particular involved in two major and very costly battles: that of Gallipoli in Turkey (which they lost) and Pouzières in Somme in France (which they won). One of the key battles in Pouzières was fought by a regiment from Perth, where my daughter and her family are now living. And in the very same battle Liselotte's German relative Franz was killed 21 years old. You learn a lot from working with genealogy! Also that the world is very small !
As most people know modern Australia was to a large extent built by deported British convicts ( prisoners ). Between 1787 and 1868 England sent altogether 166.000 convicts to Australia on 806 ships. Why from 1787? Because they had until then been sent to the British colonies in America. But after the Americans had won their independence they wanted no more convicts from Britain. The then English minister for home affairs, Lord Sydney, got the idea to send them to Australia instead. They arrived here - most of them on one-way tickets. And very hard work was expecting them. All major Australian cities except Adelaide were built by these convicts. Not Canberra, though. It was founded 50 years after the last convicts arrived. By the way, we have understood that genealogy is not that popular among Australians today. Perhaps because they do not feel happy to risk to find out that their ancestors came here as prisoners!
And finally a more positive story from this century. Everybody in Denmark and in Australia know that the Danish crown prince Frederik met his Tasmanian wife Mary, while they were both in Sydney for the Olympic Games in 2000. But do you know exactly how it happened? We met a very nice guide here, Michael, on the hop-on-hop-off buses in Canberra. He claimed to know exactly how it happened: Frederik was in a bar together with some friends. At the next table a group of girls had a good time. Surprise, surprise: they all started chatting together. And at a certain moment Mary asked Frederik: What are doing? With a sort of shy smile he replied: I am actually a prince! Now, in Australian this is often the answer you give, when you want to pull somebody's leg. But Mary responded immediately by saying: "I am cindarella" - and she took off one of her shoes! Frederik reacted like speedy Gonzales, picked up the shoe and put it back on her foot again!
The rest of the story is well known !
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