Picture Post

 Over the past few days, I have been walking around town, finding the preschools, the library, interesting stores, and just checking out the neighbourhoods. Here are some things I found along the way.

 This is a monument near the middle of town. I saw it from across the lawn, and it looked interesting.

When I got to the entrance, I saw that what looked like tiles from a distance are actually handprints! They were done from the other side, which gives it a real hand shape. The one in the upper righthand corner is Dam Silvia Cartwright, Governor General. (More about her later.)

 I walked up the spiral path to the centre, and noticed that the handprints got smaller and smaller as I went up. This picture is from the middle, where the hands range from 3 years just to the left of my hand, to 5 months in the lower right. Love it. 

On the floor in the middle of the top is this plaque, proclaiming a Culture of Peace, a Culture of Heart, and Peace Through Unity. The middle says "Dedicated on 21 September 2002 to a culture of peace and non-violence for the children of the world" by Dame Silvia Cartwright, whose hand was on the outside. I love that this is here, and so positive.

This is the public library, where J and I are about to have cards. Interestingly, you have to pay a $4.00/year fee for the card, and then 50 cents for each book you check out. Also, in addition to books, CDs, and DVDs, they have video games, although you have to pay more for those.

This is a painting in the library, which I just instantly loved. The colours didn't turn out as vibrant in the picture, but it's still lovely.

This is a cross walk in a residential area. I am trying to be very careful with them, because I always look the wrong way, expecting the cars to be driving on the right side of the road, which (of course) they are not. Pathetically enough, I find that I am so trained to look left before walking into the street that when I succeed in making myself look right instead, I have to walk across the street very quickly, because I am convinced that a car is coming from the other direction. It's a very strange feeling, but I am determined not to keep looking the wrong way, and so far, I have not been hit by a single car, so we're good.

This is a cross walk downtown. They are a bit different, because you press the walk button, and then all directions of pedestrians walk at the same time, while the cars wait. This means that it is legal to walk diagonally across (only at these intersections), hence the diagonal markings going out from the sidewalk. 

(Also notice in this picture how black the shadows are. The sun is SO intense here.)

The rest of these pictures are just pretty things that I noticed while walking around. I love all of the trees and plants, and the interesting shapes of things.