I cannot say I had been impressed with Canberra when I had visited with my mother previously. It is a planned city centred around two large circular road structures - One with the parliament building at the middle and the other centring on the business district/shopping area. I remember it was hard to find anywhere to eat because the zoning is such that restaruants can only be found in certain areas. The whole place is so well planned it struck as being very artificial and, hate to say, sterile. Largely this impression has continued with this visit and the opinion of the town seems to be largely shared with many of the people I have been working with who are from both Sydney but also New Zealand.

I have been working in an office in the middle of the city near the parliament building and I have been parking in a hotel nearby. It has been a good session with a lot of good questions and no major issues with the training though I have been working in my room each night to make sure I am ready for the training the next day (as mentioned earlier some of the material is new to me and covers areas I do not normally train in).

With the exception of the first night where I ate with some of the other attendees at their hotel I have been eating by myself in my room. I have had McDonald's a couple of times but I have tried to mix things up a bit and eat from some local places as well. The second day I was here I walked down to the main shopping centre just down the street and found a sushi place (excellent) along with a supermarket where I picked up a few things to snack on in my room.

I have also been enjoying the slurpees from 7-11 (if you have read any of my other journals you will know this is a bit of an obsession with me when I am travelling - particularly in warmer environments)…

The training completed early on Thursday with our finishing before lunch. I ate one final meal with some of the trainees before heading back to the hotel to relax…but, actually, I ended up heading into town to take a look around. I had only been driving through it…

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