Aussie-land, Day 2b

Had a very full day of tourism so I am going to post two entries--one for the day in Canberra and one for the two hours at the Australian War Memorial.

Random thoughts whilst nursing a sore foot:

• I have a new method for ranking freedom.  There are two datasets that scholars mostly use to compare countries--Polity, which focuses on elite level political competition and is used to measure how democratic the system is; and Freedom House, which focuses more on political and civil rights (as well as economic freedom--see Steinberg and Saideman 2008).  I propose a new way to measure freedom--how restrict is one's right to make a u-turn?  I think Australia would be among the freest countries in the world on this measure, and Montreal, well, at the other end.

• Canberra is very similar to Washington, DC
• The product of a political compromise (between Sydney and Melbourne)
• Entirely designed to be the capital of the country.  Canberra was designed in the early 1910s and has only recently been completely realized with the new Parliament buliding
• Where DC has diagonal streets, Canberra has circles.
• Both were located in largely empty terrain--swamp for DC, sheep grazing land for Canberra.
• Big difference is that they created a lake here, which has a greater presence, I think, than the Potomac, which something that looked over not at.  
• I had regretted not just renting a car in Sydney so that I could spend part of this weekend driving o and around Melbourne.  Now, I don't mind so much as they have had much flooding.  Canberra was beautiful yesterday and the rain held off for most of the day.
• The people here are so friendly that I got help with directions from a female Security person who had just finished making out with some guy--someone I think she knew.
• And I got heaps of help solving my tech problems.

•  The driving on the other side of the road is problematic enough, as the locals have realized and post writing on the streets to help us out (see the pic).  But I walk on the wrong side of the side walk, and have nearly produced a few collisions with bikes as a result. 

• Those Canadians who complain about the high price of books (including myself) have nothing on the Aussies.  Books seem to cost about twice as much as they should (i.e., what they cost in the US).