All is Not Lost

I used to use Safari as my browser, and I had collected a nice amount of links about Australia.

Then my Safari got messed up somehow and I thought all my bookmarks were tragically gone.

But it turns out....

Well, I pressed a button on Opera. I actually have NO idea what I did. But it gave me a menu that included importing bookmarks from various browsers.

How cool is that?

So now I have all my old links back!!

Here are some of my favorites:

Learn to Speak Aussie. This site comes from the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Yikes. I gotta take note of this place. We're going to Canberra, but I didn't put this museum on the schedule yet. Probably should. Oh, back to the site. It's geared for kids. But I think sometimes the best way to learn is to use material geared at children. It's a good place to start at least.

Australian Biography. This site is quite comprehensive and I have to admit, I've only skimmed the surface. It has detailed interviews with various famous Australians. Each one has a short video clip of the interview. I watched those. One day, I need to go back and read the whole thing. The interview that I found most fascinating was of Elizabeth Durack. She's a white woman who pretended to be Aboriginal so she could sell her Aboriginal artwork. The story brings up so many issues: Fraud, cultural identity, artistic freedom, etc.

Famous Australians. This website was very important in my Australian education. It's just a very basic site with links to other sites with biographies of important Australian people.


Simply Australian- Here is a place in America where you can order Aussie food. We've ordered from there twice and were very happy with it. The only problem is they are out of stock a lot. For example, right now they have no Vegemite except for some weird scary tube thing. They also never seem to have my beloved licorice bullets. I was about to say they're good with Tim Tams, but I just checked that and they hardly have anything. Things must be kind of bad for them now. Yikes.

Australian Banknotes-The font/background of this site isn't easy on the eyes, but I like the information on it. It talks about Australian money, and is helpful to us Americans who look at the notes and say "Who is that?"

Aboriginal Timeline-Good site for learning the history of the first Australians.

Australian History-Good site for learning the basics. I think I spent a day on here....or two.

John Ian Wing-This website is beautiful and makes me cry. Go look at it and see if you cry too. Seriously. It gives me goosebumps.

Australian Prime Ministers-Just a basic list kind of site. I find the length of office terms fascinating. It's very different from the USA. There's guys who lasted only 8 days, another one lasted 20 days, and another one just a month. Then you have this Menzies guy in there for 16 years. Very interesting. And here's some trivia for you. Julian McMahon from that scary show Nip/Tuck is the son of a Prime Minister.

Walk Sydney Streets-The best website about Australia ever. This website made me laugh so hard. You have to go here. If I ever fall out of love with Australia, all I need to do is go to the site and I'll fall in love all over again.

Moomba- This is an entry in Snopes.com. It's undetermined if it's true or not. I hope it's true. It's hilarious. Basically, the story goes that in Melbourne they wanted to have a festival. They sought out Aboriginal help in naming the festival. They got "Moomba" which was supposed to mean Let's get together have fun. Rumor has it that the name really means something like Up your butt.

And here's a NEW site that I'm super excited about. Someone commented that I should read the work of Henry Lawson and C.J Dennis. I googled them and it turns out you can read stuff online at Project Gutenberg. I'm very excited.










16 comments:

  1. :O
    You're coming to canberra and you werent planning on visiting the National Museum? What were u thinking? Add it to your itinery NOW!
    That one building contains more about Australia then you will find anywhere else in our capital city!
    Where else do you plan to go/What else do you plan to do on your trip to the berra?

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  2. Yes, I definitely need to go!!

    We were planning on doing the zoo and Questacon. We now might need to add an extra day or subtract the zoo. Is the zoo any good?

    Or I might send Jack with his father to Questacon while I spend the day in Aussie information heaven.

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  3. Project Gutenberg is good value, as you can print out a lot of the stories, too.
    A lot of the short-stay PM's were caretakers when the actual PM died in office and the Moomba thing is sort of true ;)
    Like PM Harold Holt who disappeared whilst swimming at the beach - so they built and named a memorial swimming pool after him in Malvern, Victoria. I think it was a subtle way to make sure the kids learnt to swim a bit better than old Holt lol ;)

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  4. I love the Holt story. I mean not that he died. Of course! But the pool thing.

    I've read two Lawson stories so far. I'm so excited about the website. Thanks for suggesting that I google them. I had heard of Lawson, but never even imagined or considered that I could find his work online.

    This really opens up a lot for me!!!!!

    Lots of bad drama going on in Texas so I need a nice distraction.

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  5. Hi,
    I too had a similar bookmarking issue. Your fear is understood. Since that time I have been using del.icio.us as my bookmarking tool It even allows me to network my friends and they too visits my favorite paces. Gee...i am sounding like a commercial.
    Thanks for sharing
    Randee

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  6. Ty Gunner, You DO sound like a commercial. How much are they paying you???

    I'm joking. I'm going to go check it out.

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  7. (((hugs))) hope things improve.

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  8. I learnt to swim at the Harold Holt Memorial Pool in Malvern :-) It is a very good pool. I also saved a young child from drowning there once.

    Are you going to Canberra? Have you posted your itinerary and I've missed it somehow?

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  9. Hi, Dina

    Nat Mus of Au is great.
    Also, for the kids, check out The Questacon (http://www.questacon.edu.au/) - hands-on play with science. OK, I used to be a science teacher. Now I teach IT.

    {Puts on stern "teacher" look} \:-| You should backup your: documents; email; bookmarks. Use your fave search engine to see how.

    {Reverts to normal}

    John
    :)

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  10. Tracey,

    I'm so impressed that you saved someone from drowning.

    Funny/weird it happened at the Holt pool.

    Yeah. I think we are going to Canberra.

    Don't think we're going to that many places....We're probably going to do Sydney, Snowy Mountains, Canberra, and Tasmania.

    I think we're going to be in Tasmania from the 12-15....if that's okay with you. ??????

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  11. John,

    Stop giving me the stern teacher look ; )

    I found a website where you can save bookmarks. It seems cool. I'll try to be a good student and back things up.

    Yeah. I definitely want to Questacon. It looks great. Jack and I played on their website once. They had this cool build-your-own-rollercoaster game.

    And I'm sure the actual museum is even better.

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  12. Jayne,

    Thanks!

    Things are getting better.

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  13. 12 - 15 Dec or Jan? Either is fine though. :-) Have you been looking at Launceston at all online? I worry that you'll be bored as we are just a small town really in the scheme of things

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  14. We're coming in February.

    Is that okay??????

    We're coming to see YOU. You're not boring, so I'm sure we'll have tons of fun.

    I think the town looks nice though! It's beautiful.

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  15. Feb is fine although those dates are around the time Tara might be starting back at school. I will check and get back to you. Is there any flexibility with those dates at all..as in a week earlier perhaps? I need to ring the school about something so will ask them then about 2009 starting dates. It's usually the second week of Feb though. If not, still come then and we'll sort something out. Even if she misses the first few days, it will be ok.

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  16. Tracey,

    We could probably go earlier.

    Most of the time we'll be there is the weekend though.

    But if Tara doesn't have school at all the week before, that would be even better.

    Then we could all do something Friday as well....rather than just having Saturday. I think we're going to fly back on Sunday. So the only "whole" days we'll have would be Friday and Saturday.

    If she has school both the 13th and 6th, it would probably work out slightly better for us to come the second weekend (13th)

    Does Tara have full day school on Fridays? What time do they get out?

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