Australian Museum

I´m so impressed, I just keep writing my blog... So much text (and so bad English) today. I just got back from the gym, where Michael showed me some new workouts. So cool stuff; I´m gonna have a good time training :) Seriously, I´ve been kinda lazy with training lately :/ I´ve been going to the gym 4 times a week, but not really pushing myself to get any better.

Yesterday I went to the Australian Museum with Renee. Since it´s school holiday this week there were a lot of kids there. First we went to see skeletons. They had naturally a lot of Australian animals, like kangaroos and whales, but also a dinosaurus and some humans. The most interesting section was the Indigenous Australians. It was mostly their artwork and poles, and things used for their ceremonies. We spent quite a lot of time reading the info tables. The British colossianism (that´s not the correct word) really harmed the indigenous tribes that have lived in Australia for as long as 60 000-120 000 years. They were tried to prohibit from passing their culture to next generations by taking children away from their parents and placing them in white families or state institutions. The indigenous people were strictly controlled: where they could live and work, whom they could have relationships with, where they could travel to... They weren´t given equal rights as Australian citizens until in 1969! And even though they´re theoreticly equal now, they still face some trouble. Their culture, beliefs and art are fascinating, though. During the colossianism they were introduced to the Christian religion and they actually managed to merge Christianity to their own Aboriginal religion, which is based strongly on respecting the land surrounding them. From the ground level we climbed to level 2 that was birds and insects, which we didn´t find that interesting. Level 1 was minerals. They´re so colorful and beautiful! Many of them seemed to come from America, but also from India and Europe. It´s too bad I can´t remember a lot from my geography classes at high school, since actually seeing all the minerals would´ve complimented to what I´ve learned. I didn´t know Australia is so vulcanic.

Skeletons - human riding a horse

Pukumani poles - represent dead persons

Colorful minerals

I worked from 5 till 9. We did stock take and had a lot of people working. We had to count and scan every single item in the store! The scanners were annoying. We did a good job, though, and finished an hour earlier than planned. Kwang wanted to go to eat a steak meal to Scruffy Murphys and I joined him to have a cup of coffee. We ended up sitting there and chatting till almost midnight, after which I walked home and had really late dinner.