First night in Canberra

Yesterday Jen and I said goodbye to our Sydney families and caught the train to Canberra. I must admit, I was a little worried that we weren't going to be allowed to take our new boogie boards on the train with us, but everything worked out in the end. On the other hand, our suitcases were even heavier when we checked them in for the train then they were when we checked them in for the flight up to Sydney! I swear we did give out the presents we bought, and we left a whole boxload of stuff behind in Sydney for Jen's mom to take home in February! Yet somehow our suitcases were even heavier than before. Hmmm...

Anyhow. It was a pleasant 4 1/2-hr train ride to Canberra. I don't think the scenery was all that exciting - just more fields, bushy land, small towns etc., but we did see a couple of mobs of kangaroos hopping by in the distance, which was pretty cool. The Canberra train station is very small (apparently the only train that stops here is the one we were on!) - and it was a zoo on the platform as everyone disembarked.

We had to catch a city bus to get ourselves to Nikki's house on the far side of town. So picture this - the two of us, with our big suitcases, daypacks, and boogie boards, trying to get onto the bus. And then I realized we didn't have the right change to pay for the bus fare! Jen ran back to the station to try and get some change, while I waited rather anxiously in the front seat of the bus, surrounded by all this luggage! Unfortunately, Jen got caught in a huge line inside the station and didn't make it back to the bus in time... so I hauled all our gear off the bus, apologized to the driver, and watched him drive away.

We waited for a while in the bus shelter for the next bus, and it took about 20 minutes for us to realize that the buses didn't appear to be following the schedule posted AT ALL. Fortunately there was a number to call for updates, so I called it and discovered that the buses are all running on a modified schedule because it's the holiday season. Good thing I called! The guy on the other end of the line was very helpful, and when I asked him about the connecting bus we were catching in the city's downtown, he told me it wasn't running at all! Ack! Fortunately there was another bus we could catch instead. So all in all, it took us just over 2 hours to get to Nikki's home.

Nikki had called me yesterday to tell me that apparently there were some problems with the lights in the house. However, by the time we got in and did a quick recon in the kitchen, we realized we would have to head out for groceries right away if we wanted to buy dinner food before the stores closed. So we hopped in the car and got all that done. Nikki's car is spectacular... but I'm going to save that for another post. :-) Suffice it to say that when we got back to the house, it was now dusk and we realized that we hadn't dealt with the lighting issue yet... and yes, only three or four lights worked in the entire house! Not good! Fortunately the lights in the kitchen were operational, so Jen got to work on dinner while I dealt with the pets.

Our other responsibility while we're here is to feed the family's dog and two cats. Their food dishes are located outside (they can come and go as they please through a cat flap in one of the doors), and it should have been an easy thing to add more food etc... but since the lights weren't working, I did a lot of stumbling around in the dark until we found a flashlight. Ha ha! Poor Fifi... their little dog was definitely happy to see us! She'd managed somehow to escape the backyard and met us at the front door, a little on the wet and muddy side. Once she'd been fed, she spent the rest of the evening curled up right beside me on the couch!

The really strange thing with these electrical problems is that it's only the lights that are controlled by wall switches that appear to be affected... anything plugged into the wall still work. So I took the flashlight and did a little tour around the house, turning on small lamps here and there so that it was a little less creepy. We think there must have been a big thunderstorm... all the clocks are blinking and we found out the hard way that the hot water was turned off too! But that at least has been sorted out now, and I am shortly going to go and have a good hot shower.

So here we are, on our first morning in Canberra, waiting for an electrician to arrive to fix the problem. Jen and I have agreed that if nobody's called us back by noon (I've left messages at a number of places), then we're heading out to explore anyway. I mean, really... there are enough lights in the house for us to get by, and all the big deal stuff like the fridge and stove and hot water do work, so we can survive!