Today we had a full schedule. We started of by heading up to Mt. Ainslie and getting a bit of a bird's eye view of Canberra. Unfortunately it was a bit foggy, but we still got to see quite a view. Then we headed to the Parliament House. Once again it was clear, by the things we learned in our tour of the Parliament House, that this city is very planned. For example the pillars in the main lobby are designed to resemble Gum trees, or Eucalyptus trees. On our tour we got a chance to go into the chambers. Each chamber had a specific color scheme with its own meaning, again very planned out. In the chambers our guide filled us in on some basic governmental information about Australia. There are many similarities between our government and theirs, for example their government is also separated into local, state, and federal. One big difference though is that they have compulsory voting; once you turn 18 here you have to vote and you are allowed to vote at the age of 16. After our visit to the Parliament House we headed to the U.S. Embassy. Here we learned about jobs within the embassy and within the area of foreign affairs. It seems that if travel is on your agenda, and you like variety in your day to day schedule a job in foreign affairs would a perfect fit. Next we headed to ANZAC parade, a street in Canberra full of memorials. There were memorials for nurses who served during wars, and memorials to the men who served in multiple different wars. At the end of ANZAC parade we made our way to the ANZAC War Museum. Here we learned even more about the wars that Australia has been involved in and the artwork that was produced as a result. An amazing part of the Museum was a roll of honor that listed all of the men who had every served in war for Australia. Like I said, today we had a full and busy schedule but I now feel that I have a greater understanding of the workings of Australian government and who the Australian people as a whole are.
-Kathleen D.
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