IMPORTANT: Continued my blog: silvisadventures.blogspot.com (Canberra Sightseeing Day 2)

On our second day in Canberra, we set our alarm for 7:00 am so we had time for breakfast, cleaning up, washing dishes, showering, and getting laundry out of the dryer before leaving at 9:15 am. We wanted to be at the Royal Australian Mint at 10 because there was a free tour at that time. The Mint manufactures all the Australian coins in circulation as well as many collectibles.

Right in the entrance area, there was a huge bowl filled with hundreds of $1 coins. It looked beautifully golden. At 10 o'clock sharp, the tour on the upper floor started, and I think we had the strangest guide since we've been in Australia. He had a completely unfriendly aura, never smiled once and had a very dry sense of humor. The other tour guests seemed to like it though because they laughed heartily quite often. But they were all Australians or English people.

First, we learned a lot about the history of Australian money and were able to see old coins in glass cases. In the past, there were shillings and pence and only in the 60s did they switch to decimal currency. Since then, there have been many different designs for the coins, and eventually, animals were also pressed onto the coins. Additionally, the 1 and 2 cent coins were abolished at some point. Our guide also briefly talked about the fact that Australian banknotes are made of plastic instead of paper and how easily they can be recycled. But after that, we went back to talking about coins because we were in the mint after all.

After the historical information, we went into a hallway where we could watch the coin production through large glass windows. There was a room for circulating coins, the regular coins in circulation, one for uncirculated coins, collector's coins, and one for proof coins, very high-quality collector's coins. The more valuable the coin had to be, the higher-quality the blank and the more manual labor was involved in the production. For the circulating coins, there were several robots that, for example, lifted the barrels filled with blanks weighing tons and poured them into a machine. We were able to watch this and it looked really cool.

After the tour, we took a closer look at some of the exhibits and also found a table with really nice gold and silver tableware. It looked so fine and shiny, I would have bought it immediately if I had found it at a flea market. But it was probably too expensive for that :D

Back on the ground floor, I had my own $1 coin minted for $3, which shows the Transaustralian Railway. The coin looks so new and shiny! We also took a look at the coin shop, where there were really funny and very beautiful coins. Unfortunately, they were quite expensive.

At 11:30 am, we drove to the War Memorial in the city, which is a well-known monument for war victims and also houses a large museum about the wars in which Australia was involved. We actually just wanted to take a quick look so we could say we've seen it, but the exhibits were actually quite interesting, so in the end, we spent 1.5 hours inside. Among other things, there was information about World War I and II, Afghanistan, and various wars in Asia that you don't hear about as often in Germany. Additionally, there were old planes to admire and a large Memorial Hall above the museum with a very beautiful dome.

At 1:30 pm, we went to Dominos Pizza to pick up our pre-ordered pizzas and then ate them in the car. After that, we went to the National Gallery, where we wanted to take a free tour at 2:30 pm. Besides the guide, Andi, and me, there were four women from Brisbane on the tour, but they had already looked at a lot of the museum before and left us after 10 minutes. So Andi and I ended up having a private tour. We looked at paintings by Monet from the Impressionism era, some international and specifically Australian expressionistic artworks, the main work by Jackson Pollock, some Dadaism, a few classic Australian paintings, Aboriginal art, and ancient Asian artworks. The whole tour was really interesting, and we listened willingly. Afterwards, we walked through the gallery on our own and also took a look at the new Asian art that our guide recommended. That was something different because there was a huge castle hanging in the basement made from BDSM accessories. You don't see something like that every day, it was really fascinating. The other Asian artworks were somewhat disturbing, so we went back to the car. It was already 5 pm and the museum was closed anyway.

Next, we went to a rest area north of the city where we prepared our dinner of pasta with pesto. Andi then proofread Ceckes' bachelor thesis, and I did some blogging. After that, we went to bed :)