Media thread - 15 June 2023, 16:30

A photo of a very large burger with lettuce, cheese, and onion visible from the side. A big bowl of chips is visible behind it.

A photo of a stylised sculpture of a black and white whale, it's short and stubby and has big teeth for some reason.

We are in Canberra!

First order of business was lunch at Brodburger. Pretty delicious, though not the BEST burger I've had.

We went to check in at the Hyatt and they weren't able to give us the room we asked for, and also they weren't ready for early check-in like they said it should have been so we went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. They were both pretty dinky, and fully half the National Gallery was closed. I took a handful of photos which I've uploaded to Flickr, and I loved this little whale sculpture by Horace Wikmunea. The Portrait Gallery was actually significantly more interesting, though still far smaller that I was expecting.

Then we got back to the Hyatt and waited for ages for someone to actually come to reception to check us in, got our room key and went to the room, and realised it was directly overlooking the breakfast area despite us having specifically requested a quiet room. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Went back to reception and got moved to ANOTHER room, this one actually quiet, and now we're killing time until we head out for dinner with @pelagikat@eigenmagic.net.

Posted on 15 June 2023, 16:30

A photo of four people, two men with with beards (one beard is short and red, the other long and grey) and receding hairlines and two women with short hair, smiling at the camera.

I went for a brisk (emphasis on brisk... the "feels like" temperature was 3.7˚C) walk along the bridge next to the hotel just before sunset to get my Apple Watch exercise ring closed and got a cool shot of Black Mountain Tower.

Then we had Japanese for dinner and it was wonderful to meet @pelagikat@eigenmagic.net and @cefiar@chinwag.org in person!

kristina selfie me friends canberra

Posted on 15 June 2023, 21:22

A photo of three grey/black ducks standing on some grass next to a plant.

A photo an old golden labrador lying on the carpet looking at the camera.

Today started with a hotel buffet breakfast. Mine was... fine, but the "gluten free" selection was absolutely dire and @yayKM ended up just going back up to our hotel room to have the oat bake she'd brought. It was just as well it was free due to them having screwed up our rooms yesterday because I would have been pretty unimpressed if we'd had to pay for it. After that we hit up the National Museum of Australia which was actually pretty neat although we managed to get through all of it in an hour and a half (we didn't go to any of paid exhibits).

For lunch we visited relatives of mine who live in Canberra, then this afternoon went over to finally meet @damonism and his lovely wife in person, and met their ducks and adorable labrador Obi!

dog darkroom ducks canberra

Posted on 16 June 2023, 17:31

WE. ARE. HOME.

To add to the overall cursedness of this trip, we had dinner last night in the hotel restaurant, it was EXTREMELY overpriced and not very good, and I subsequently woke up at 1:30am and spent the next two hours being sick. 😑

And just to top it all off, we've come home to a notification from our ISP saying there was a burst water main in one of the points of interconnect that ruined a bunch of networking equipment and we're not expected to have our regular internet connection working until this evening. And of course because the whole area is affected, everyone is tethering and it's all slow as hell.

our house text only

Posted on 17 June 2023, 14:47