Awesome puns aside, Australia's capitol was the site of the wedding of my dear friends Bre and Brenden. For those who do not know, Bre and I traveled through Peru, Chili, and Bolivia together during the first part of 2010 (see above). It was in a hostel in La Paz where Bre and Brenden met. I like to take credit for their meeting as it was I who decided that we were going to sit "with those dudes over there" and then promptly abandoned Bre with the large group of Australians where she was then seduced by Brenden's charm and magic tricks. Normally one shouldn't leave a female friend with a large group of male strangers, but in this instance it worked out for the best.
So to get to this most excellent wedding we flew out of Gold Coast, saying good bye to Taryn, Karl, and the most adorable Alice, and headed to Sydney where we then caught a Greyhound bus, which was red in colour (crazy backward Australians) to Camberra. We got in late and caught a cab to our hotel, a nice little place in the Kingston area of town near the parliament buildings. After sleeping in the next day, we wandered out to explore the neighbourhood / kill time before the welcome reception that was being held in Bre's parent's hotel room that evening. We had lunch in a pub by a little park, found an Australian decoration for our Christmas tree, and struggled to find an ATM which would give us money. After calling Scotiabank twice and being told that they didn't know what was wrong and maybe we should just wait and try again later, we finally got some cash and headed over to the lovely Hotel Realm. After a great evening of food and drink with Bre and Brenden's families, we wandered home, shivering, wishing we had brought sweaters, and wondering how it could possibly be cold in Australia.
The next day was wedding day and the shirt, pants, and dress shoes I had been lugging around were finally going to be used. The wedding was held at the National Arboretum which is located on a hillside with an amazing view of Canberra. Brenden looked very handsome and dashing and all sorts of other Princely adjectives, and Bre was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, as Brenden lamented in his speech later at the reception, just when Bre came in some dust flew in with her and got in Brenden's eyes. Very unfortunate.
Following the ceremony we headed down to the Hotel Realm and ate and drank the afternoon away with other wedding guests until we could head upstairs to the reception hall. Whoever decorated did a great job. The hall looked amazing. The food was delicious, the speeches entertaining, and there were even s'mores packages for each guest at the tables! We cooked ours over a candle. The Australians were confused, but then delighted when we explained what they were supposed to do with the graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow. Then we danced and danced until we yawned and yawned because we are old and staying up past 10 is apparently impossible for us now.
The next day we checked out of our hotel, went to a Pizza Hut for a $5 large pizza (the only inexpensive thing in the entirety of Australia. That and 30 cent ice cream at McDonald's) and caught a ride with Bre's aunt and uncle out to Bre and Brenden's place south of the city. We had a lovely BBQ (no, there was no shrimp, and apparently it's prawns anyway) and hung out with the families, both of which are exceedingly cool.
After the BBQ we got a ride back into town and decided to kill the 6 hours until our bus to Melbourne at the movies. The first movie we saw was a Kiwi mockumentary called 'What We Do in Shadows'. It is about vampires living Wellington and it was hilarious. See it if you are able. The second movie we watched was 'The Giver'. Unlike most people I did not read this book in school. Perhaps if I had I would have liked it more. I have always had difficulty suspending my disbelief when it comes to films, TV shows, etc. I will point out that in real life a person would have called someone on the phone to have a 30 second conversation instead of going across Manhatten to have it in person, but that doesn't make for dramatic television I suppose. I also suppose that it is annoying to have such gaps in logic pointed out for you when you are trying to enjoy show. Such is the fate of my wife I guess. Anyways, the point is that couldn't get over the idea of a single person transfering memories that they never actually experienced to another person by grabbing their arms, or that by such a person crossing an invisible barrier suddenly everyone else miles and miles away would suddenly know what the colour red is. Didn't make sense. Couldn't get into it. That being said, I am completely able to get into a movie about mutated turtles who know ninjitsu.
Following our movie adventure we caught a bus (with assigned seating?) and were off to Melbourne.
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