History's Lessons

Since we can't spend as much time as we'd like just screwing around the country and having fun, I've been trying to learn as much as I can about our new home by reading.  I've read that Australians read more books per capita than any other country and If you ever got on the train in the morning with me you'd know it to be true.  Just about everybody has their face buried in a novel.  I've been no different.  Of course I am a pretty avid reader and I've almost always gone for fiction over more substantive reading. Lately though I've found myself reading a lot of history.  In particular history about Australia. 

We've got a library right above the train station here at Toowong Village that I've been using to get my fix.  I've read a couple of histories of Australia, just to get a feel for the country.  Let's face it, most Americans know little about the Australian history (We'll let's be real, most Americans know little about American History) and if we do know anything it usually ends with the whole "penal colony thing"  

It's true that the first colonies we're primarily populated by convicts but the total number of convicts sent here was dwarfed by the number of voluntary migrants within a few years.  The exception to this was Tasmania (formerly called Van Dieman's land) They sent a lot of prisoners there for quite some time, but that's for another post.  

The point is there is a lot to the founding of a country and now I feel like I have a great reason to find out all I care to know.  It's amazing how reading about the first migrants to Australia makes me feel closer to them. It's doesn't take a huge leap to imagine how lonely the first settlers here were.  I still have moments of painful homesickness even now in the internet age. Back then it took months and months on a ship to sail from England It could be years between letters from family members.

In one history book I read the author mentioned that a lot of people who came here in the first days kept diaries and most of them recorded mundane daily routine.  That sort of struck a chord with me, in that I don't want this blog to become a diary of my mundane daily routine.  I'm sure no one wants to read that. At least you shouldn't want to read that.  Of course I'm going to have mundane routine in my life, I can't avoid the fact that I'm not exactly swimming in piles of gold coins. But I am going to have to do some work to find a focus other than "what did I do today".

If you have any suggestions for things you'd like to hear about, drop a note.