Visit to the Nation's Capital

This past week, on February 16th, our study group visited Australia's capital, Canberra (pronounced "Canbra" by the native Australian).  The layout of the city was planned; a design competition was held to produce the best,  most efficient organization of the city.  Surprisingly, the winning designer was from Chicago, Illinois.


First, we visited the Australia War Memorial.  The inner walls of the memorial were garnished with red poppies, dedicated to those lives lost in battle.  To my surprise, Australia has taken part in every major world war, as well as many others (again, the U.S. education system fails to provide adequate information about other countries histories').

The inside of the Ware Memorial was purposefully constructed to contain no religious symbols. This was surprising, seeing as how one of the halls within the memorial appeared to be religious at first glance.  These stained glass windows contained pictures of war heroes and the dome on the roof contained intricate designs.

After this, we visited the Australian Parliament.  The decor inside and outside the Parliament building was all very symbolic--colored stones which comprised the veranda made an aboriginal design, the colored stone surrounding the veranda represented dessert, mountains, and ocean, and the stone decorating the inside of the building all represented geographical features.  The House of Representatives room is all shades of pink, which represents the eucalyptus flower and the Senate room is green, which symbolizes eucalyptus leaves.