The last two days have been spent touring Canberra, Australia's capital. Yesterday we toured the Parliament House and the parks and buildings in the area followed by an afternoon at the War Memorial. The War memorial is very impressive. At 5:00pm there was a ceremony honouring all of the soldiers who were lost in all of the conflicts in which Australia has been involved. The new Parliament is quite modern and certainly distinctive. We noted that the landscaping and parks in the precinct are well designed but maintenance is lacking (lawns dry, flowers not maintained). That comment can extend to much of the municipal area of Canberra. Today we took a one hour cruise on Lake Burley Griffin. The lake is named after the Chicago landscape architect who planned Canberra in the 1920s. Then visited the National Museum, wondered around downtown and drove through embassy row in the evening. Canberra is a typical capital city. Functional, with some interesting buildings and lots of parks, but a bit boring. Being a city designed by a landscape architect, it is a bear to navigate with a vehicle -- circles and spokes -- nothing square. Thank God for "Geoffrey" the name we gave to the GPS unit Christine and Aaron lent to us.