When the four of us met up again, we visited a neat children’s bookstore that Jeni had found on her wanderings. It was full of wonderful stuff, and was hard to escape with only three books*(2).
It was soon time to return to the ferry. The waves had gotten even bigger in the time we were gone, and although the captain warned us, the front deck was packed with people enjoying the ride. There were several good dips, a little sprinking, and then two or three good waves that got everyone utterly drenched with seawater. It was wonderful. The deck emptied fast, but Jeni and I stayed out there a little longer to enjoy it.
After we got back and dried off, we visited an Indian restaurant for dinner and then wandered around the city a little. We explored an interesting semi-interactive sculpture in front of the Sydney Museum called “Eyes Beyond the Trees,” which was meant to symbolize the first European-Aboriginal encounters. It was a small forest of vertical pilings, some with writing, some with glass displays of embedded shells and hair, others with cracks that, if you held your ears to them, recited words in native aboriginal languages.
Tim wanted us to see a sculpture somewhere deep into the botanical gardens, but we didn’t get very far before an official closing the park for the night threw us out. We did encounter some kind of possum there, though.
1. While I was eating, I was watching the hordes of pigeons and gulls around the square and saw the cutest thing. You know how some little kids will scream and run through flocks of birds to scare them? There was a little two year-old standing in the middle of a sea of expectant seabirds, eyes screwed shut, stomping his foot, yelling “GO AWAY BIRDS!!!” at the top of his lungs, verging on tears. Priceless.
2. Edward the Emu, The Frog Prince Continued, andVerdi.
