(Warning- this blog could fall into category of travelogue)
Dear fellow Australians,
We love to put each other’s cities down. Sydney is the biggest bully, and I always feel slightly inadequate when I am there and someone asks where I am from. I find myself defensively advocating for my beloved “Brizvegas”, but feel like the ugly country cousin proclaiming a little too loudly things like, “Yeah well… in Brisbane… we have a gay scene too!”. But maybe the not so quiet confidence I have always had in my hometown, lies in the fact that “at least I am not from Canberra”. However, the two and a half weeks that I spent recently in our Nation’s capital city, has made me think that Canberra is quite capital after all (as in not so bad).
They say that in comedy, timing is everything and maybe the same applies to Canberra because I was there for both Autumn AND Anzac Day. So everywhere I looked there was beauty to behold; the city was not only ablaze with burnt oranges, blood reds, and canary yellows but also crawling with men in uniform! Not realising it was the 25th April, I stumbled out of my hotel on day one and and ran straight into a rather dishy gentleman in an Air force uniform waiting to cross at the lights. Full of the smug confidence of a Brizvegas girl in a town I imagined full of my poor country cousins I said a little flirtatiously, “You look smart today, Sir” to which he replied in a polite and courteous tone, “Well, we don’t get to dress up very often”. And I stupidly joked, “Really? Costume party?” And he said a little less courteously, “It’s Anzac Day”. “Oh!” I squeaked and tried to smile in defence (excuse the pun), then proceeded to have to stand next to him in awkward silence while we waited for the green walk man to appear.
By the way, my advice to anyone visiting Canberra is NOT to wait for the walk signal. I realised by day three that one wastes at least half an hour a day standing on kerbs looking out at wide empty streets.
They say that the people make a city and maybe this is why most people probably assume that Canberra, full of bureaucrats and politicians, is Boring (note the capital b). However, what is totally overlooked here is Canberra’s massive student population (thanks mostly to ANU). And just as where there is smoke there is fire, where there are students, there are bars. Canberra goes off at night and the best thing about the students in Canberra is that they are still grungy (unlike our wanna- be -yuppie student population in Brisbane that work full time jobs, drive new cars and still live at home). Bars like The Phoenix are testament to this, where you’ll find yourself sitting on a wonderfully crummy old couch, surrounded by flannos, paisley and (my favourite) corduroy whilst listening to Jeff Buckley or something else suitably nineties.
Other important places to visit while in our nation’s capital include: The Knightsbridge Penthouse… not a magazine but a bar, Tilleys Devine Café Gallery, which is a Cabaret Club/ breakfast/ lunch/ dinner/ any time of day venue and The Wig and Pen where you can sample 150 mls of five different types of beer for seven dollars. Hard to decide what was my favourite thing from behind the Wig and Pen bar… was it the Canberra Krolsh or was it Louis who poured my Krolshes?
And as for the National Film & Sound Archive, The War Memorial (aka Canberra’s Taj Mahal), The National Gallery, The Portrait Gallery, Questacon (The National Science Centre), Old Parliament House and The Tent Embassy (just to name a few),
these are all undeniably good reasons to visit Canberra also. But I didn’t get to any of them because I was having too much fun!
Love Liz
