Ryan: Canberra: Spending A Day With The Aussie Prime Minister

Today I spent the day with a pretty important person in the Aussie community...the Prime Minister himself. We arrived in Canberra on Friday after traveling by bus from Sydney. Canberra is not the most exciting place to say the least, but it is the capital of Australia. It is a really laid-back town. One of the most stand-out things here is that everyone parks their cars in their front yards. Hardly anyone parks in driveways. Sometimes, even if they have a driveway, they still park in the front yard! It is pretty funny to see. We have been staying with Brian's aunt, which has been nice. It has definitely been good to sleep in a real bed and get a hardy home-cooked meal. I feel like I am refreshed and ready to get on the road again!

I've been sleeping on this pull-out couch. It's been like sleeping on a cloud compared to the bed I was sleeping on in the hostel on Bondi Beach.

Driveways are not used at all!

But back to the Prime Minister. We went to the capital building today and toured it. The building was incredible. Since arriving in OZ, I have seen more incredible buildings then I thought existed. So it is hard to say, but I think the capital building was one of my favorite. It was originally constructed in 1980, so it has not been around for very long at all. The inside has more granite then you could imagine. Granite walls, floors, handrails, etc. This gives it a very classy feel. Also, the building was constructed right into the side of a hill. So much so, that you can actually walk up a portion of the hill directly onto the roof of the capital. On top of the roof, there is a flag pole that is quite big. Brian's aunt told us that it is actually the biggest flag pole in the world. I guess Aussie has more to brag about then just nice beaches haha. Tomorrow is Australia Day (which is like the equivalent to 4th of July in the US). Because of this, the Prime Minister was outside the capital building. You wouldn't believe the lack of security. Brian and I walked right up to the podium that he was standing at. I literally could have had a conversation with him. The most ironic part of the whole situation was that there were hardly any security guards or police officers. There was only a single security guard standing between me and the Prime Minister. Also, there were no checkpoints or anything at all in the entire place that checked people's bags or purses. In essence, you literally could have brought in whatever you wanted and walked almost directly to the most powerful man in Aussie. It was interesting to see the difference between Australia and the US...if it had been George Bush or Obama at that event, there probably would have been about 600 secret service agents, a few airplanes and helicopters flying overhead, and maybe even a tank or two! We asked Brian's aunt why the security was so low even though the Prime Minister was present. She simply told us that he's not that important and if he was assassinated people would only be a little upset for a short period of time! Overall, the experience was one I won't ever forget.