"are those people or am i hallucinating?"

A couple of weeks ago, while I was quite sick with the flu (or whatever) which I came down with when I was at the Blue Mountains, I took a day trip to Canberra to see the Degas exhibit at the National Art Gallery. I went to Canberra for a couple of days when I was a teenager with my parents, and it was a pleasant couple of days walking around the water, listening to the chiming carillon, and visiting Parliament. However, even as a young teenager I was aware of something which most Australians are exceedingly familiar with, and which I saw even clearer on this recent trip. Canberra is a ghost town.

The suspicion is that the population of Canberra increases greatly when there's an exciting exhibit on at one of the museums, and that's certainly the only reason I felt the need to revisit the nation's capital, which is about a four hour drive southwest of Sydney.

The Degas exhibit was definitely worth the trip. It was very well organized into a chronological display of Degas' work, and was complemented by a worthwhile audio tour which helped explain the links between Degas' early paintings and those of his influences, and the transitions between his experimental monotypes and his more famous portraits. I was of course quite familiar with his paintings of opera rats, laundresses, and horses, but developed a new found appreciation for a work which I believe I've seen before, but never gave as much attention as when looking at it while listening to the audio tour (click to view full-size):

The New Orleans Cotton Exchange, 1873

With my constant nose-blowing and hydrating to get myself through the low point of my cold or flu or whatever I had, I forgot to take any photos while I was in Canberra. But worry not, I did take a photo of the Big Merino in Goulburn while stopping for petrol on the way back to Sydney:

Also in Goulburn, I bought a nifty new novelty ice cream which I hadn't seen before: a Smarties push pop! It was vanilla ice cream with Smarties mixed in, and the handle was filled entirely with Smarties! One of my favo(u)rite things about traveling has always been the different types of candy and ice creams that are available around the world.

Oh, I just dug up a photo scan of a picture that I took in Canberra when I was there a few years back:
I know, it's really high quality photo taking that I do! Marvel at my mad skillz!