I’ve been in Australia (affectionately known by locals as Oz or ’stralia) for almost 3 weeks, and so far it’s been fabulous. People are friendly, food is good and I’ve already seen 2 incredible fireworks displays, helped manage a kid’s bouncing tower, found a cool church, and even got some work done on my thesis and related linguistics research.

Canberra is where I’m living, the little-known capital of the country, and the first set of fireworks were for the centenary celebration. The capitol was built 100 years ago to administrate the large country, where people come for government jobs and university and not much else. It feels more like a country town, which I like.

At the moment, though, I’m visiting some friends in Brisbane, north of Sydney (and therefore warmer than Canberra, as closer to the equator). The Davies family were in Ghana with SIL at the same time as my family, and we got to know them and their two sons pretty well. I haven’t seen them in 6 years or so, and it’s good to be able to spend the weekend with them.

EDIT: You can read up on a friend’s breakdown of the weekend HERE.