national gallery of australia

After we got back from the botanical gardens, we decided to head out to the National Gallery of Australia, which has a fabulous collection, especially of impressionists, which are some of my favorites. It also has an amazing Aboriginal Memorial, which you can read about here, but it seems like it is verboten to make images of it. There were amazing paintings and 200 painted tree trunks representing log coffins and different aboriginal groups. You can see a small picture of it here. The building itself is also very visually interesting on the inside, with twists and turns, windows in unexpected places, and views like alleys through the building. The gift shop was disappointing, though...

After a thoroughly enjoyable time, we went to the cafe at the National Portrait Gallery and I got an iced coffee. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had no ice in it, rather it had a layer of ice cream frozen into the bottom of the glass and a generous serving of whipped cream on top. Refreshing!

Just a few steps towards Lake Burley Griffin we found a part of Reconciliation Place, pictures of which you can see in this slide show:

I think P and I were both really moved by it (you can read more about it here). We then proceeded through a sandstone tunnel to the lake, which is part of Commonwealth Place, in addition to the constellation paving in the slideshow above. It was, apparently, a gift from Canada.

We then proceeded to the Australians of the Year walk, which was actually very interesting. We had heard of a few of them, but most of them were unknown to us.

After a little rest, we all (there are six of us from San Diego here right now, two wives and four mathematicians) decided to go out for dinner and ended up at Gus's. We had no idea it was of any historical significance, just that it was good.