I spent last night on a ten hour bus ride from Melbourne to Canberra. It was not comfortable. The seats weren't bad, they just weren't made for long term company. I popped a sleeping pill (Thanks for those, Mom!)...turned out to have some weird effects. I was absolutely exhausted, but because of my unsavory positioning (atleast thats what I am blaming it on) i kept waking up and feeling really disorientated and confused. At one point I woke up when the bus stopped and thought "oh great, I've arrive in Sydney!" and it took my brain a little while to realize that A) it was still dark and B) I was going to Canberra...

Anyway, when I did eventually yank my eyes open in the wee hours of the morning (okay...around 7 am) I saw an amazing sight. There were 3 wild kangaroos hopping around in the grassy plains in front of a beautiful sunrise! My first kangaroo sighting! It ALMOST made the bus ride worth it. Well, that was until I tried to share my excitement with my couch surfing host, Keith, who responded by saying "Ugh, those roo's are everywhere! They just get in the way. Cars hit them all the time, and they really mess up your car"....so it seems that kangaroos are the deer of Australia! Keith surprised me even more when he said "What I really want to see is a squirrel!".....a squirrel? This guy isn't phased by kangaroos, yet thinks squirrels are impressive. Australians are weird.

Speaking of weird, Canberra is a strange place. I did not take the picture above, it is from the archives of this website. I would have put up one of my own photos but...I don't really know what is worth taking a picture of here. True, I only just arrived this morning so maybe I will find something amazing...or not. There isn't much here at all..there aren't very many people, malls, or much culture. There is a lot of concrete though. and round abouts. and museums. And it has been very hot today.

Today, Keith dropped me off at the Vietnam Embassy...well I actually walked into the Embassy of Chile first but, whatever. I would have thought that would have been hard to do (walk into the wrong embassy) but they all just look like normal houses! Anyway, turns out I was too early so the secretary told me to wait on the street for 20 minutes. About 5 minutes later a man came out apologizing and told me I could wait inside. He proceeded to have a conversation with me, only I thought he was questioning me for the sake of my visa and it wasnt until he asked me how many siblings I have that I realized he was just making conversation. He left, and about 15 minutes later someone else came to help me. Turns out for $20 extra you can pick up your visa later the same day so I decided to head into the city (the embassy was in a random neighbourhood) for a couple of hours. The bus system here is pretty good, my only complaint is about the MASSIVE red ants that were having some kind of civil war at my bus stop. I actually took some pictures of those...maybe I will change my main photo after this. I went and got some breakfast, hung out at borders, and then went back to pick up my visa around 2 pm. I only had to wait a litt

i just realized that i can't find my cell phone....more later.

WOW. So I just searched through my whole bag, searched around the computer, and then went back to a couch i was sitting on earlier, got down on my hands and knees to look on the ground, looked through the pillows and then got up and walked away really worried when...this older man who has been doing a charity raffle all day goes "are you looking for a phone" and i can't imagine how hopeful my face got when he said that. Turns out he gave it into the information desk. So i went down to them and they looked very skeptical that the phone was actually mine, so she asked me to give her the phone number so she could call it, which i did...and the phone didnt ring........turns out she typed it in wrong. And I got it back. YAY! phewwwww.

So anyway, i got my vietnam visa, and then just popped over to the Laos Embassy which was next door and handed them in an application and my passport. I didnt actually have all of my Laos information on me though so I left some major points blank..like my contact in Laos. But the guy said it didnt matter so whatever. I am picking that up on friday morning, meaning tomorrow I have a full day to explore the wonderful world of Canberra.....awesome.