Last two days in Sydney and return to Emmanuel

My last two days in Sydney, Friday and Saturday, were not really eventful. Mostly I explored different parts of the city, including Chinatown, on Friday and on Saturday I spent the whole day (before I went to the airport) at the NSW Art Gallery. It was a really nice museum with a great gift shop. The main sections were Australian 19th and 20th century, a large asian gallery (with great Japanese and Chinese ceramics), an Indigenous art floor, and an exhibition area showing the finalists from the Archibald Prize and the Wynne and Sulman Prize. The Archibald Prize is given annually to a portrait done by an Australian/Kiwi artist. I wasn't particularly fond of the winner but they had a lot really amazing portraits, most of which were quite large oil paintings. The close runner-up is this really haunting portrait of Heath Ledger by Vincent Fauntauzzo, which was completed shortly before Heath's death. You may have seen a reproduction of it in a paper or online somewhere. There is a picture of it in the Sydney album somewhere, but it is also on the home page of the NSW Gallery http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/

I finally got back to EMC on Saturday night. It felt really nice to be at my home away from home. Some people were still away for break but most were trickling in slowly and the hall was mostly full by the next night. It was so nice to see all of our friends and be back to the familiar schedule of Emmanuel. It was rough when uni started again, especially because it is right around mid-semester exams and assignments. But now we're all back in the swing of things and have a big "exchange" (at home we'd say a mixer) with all of the other colleges tonight at a secret location so it should be a lot of fun.

Dad was saying the other day how the daffodils are coming out and its starting to be spring like at home. Easter is SUPPOSED to be spring time and filled with the pastel colors and sweet smells and chocolate eggs. But its "fall" here now and its the usual 75-80 degrees but in the morning its been a bit chillier, which makes me feel like it is actually autumn. I hardly have any clothes for cold weather as I have been wearing sun dresses and pluggers (flip-flops) for the past two months, so I've been wearing the same zip up and strechy pants like every day. (As if I dont do the same at home anyways...) I wore jeans two nights ago for the first time, which was actually kind of nice.