After breakfast, Cynthia and I take the train into Melbourne to see Simon’s sculptures in 101 Collins Street. The office building is the “Fifth Avenue” of Melbourne, so the Bulgari jewelry store down the street has two guards dressed as Roman centurions complete with cuirasses and other equipment out front. 101 is closed tight as a drum and no one answers the buzzer that says, “Ring to enter.” Luckily, just as we’re leaving, David spots a gal using her card to enter and we get her to let us in.

The atrium to this building is enormous, maybe three or four stories high with halls on the sides letting onto platforms of sculptures on stands in pools of water. Cynthia asks a security guard where Simon Rigg’s sculptures are and he says “There are no names.” Cynthia points to the names in front of all the sculptures on her side of one hall and says, “Every sculpture has a name.”

That gets us far.

David finds Simon’s sculptures on the other side of the building and when the guard says, “You can’t be here. It’s a security issue,” replies, “Absolutely. Just taking a few photos of the art and that’s us out the door.”

We get our photos and wish the lovely understanding patient ignoramus farewell and walk to the Victoria National Gallery to meet Wilma, an old friend of Cynthia’s who slept on our couch when we lived in our FIRST apartment at 2124 Eye Street. She has two new knees but is as sprightly as ever and after lunch in the VNG cafeteria, we amble up the escalator to see some art.

Incredible: A room maybe 100 by 100 feet piled with 100 perfectly formed but different white skulls that are each about seven to nine feet round. The installation is called “Mass” and Ron Mueck, an Aussie born in 1958, made it all from fiberglass painted with synthetic polymer.

An adjacent room has so many paintings in it you can’t focus on anything without serious efforts of will. Most of these paintings are low kitsch: The “Defenestration” depicts a 17th century burger being thrown out a window by an angry group that holds another burger waiting for the same fate. Broad grainy grimaces and looks of horror painted by one V. Brozik in 1618. Nearby, two lovely and naked lesbian lovers look fondly at their viewers from “The Victory of Faith” by St. George Hare (1857) … seemed an odd theme for the time, yes? No?

We leave the gallery and walk along the Yarra River to see Simon’s casino sculptures, watching street performers give it their all along the way. Each seems to pick a cute little girl from the audience and then tell assembled crowds that girls still make 19.7 percent less than men so the crowd needs to show the cute little girl how much they resent that state of affairs and pony up serious money at the end of the show. “Big hand for .. What’s your name darlin’ .. Sheila. YES!!!!”

Wilma toddles off to walk her dogs and Cynthia and I pick a bridge to walk across the Yarra to get to Flinders Street Station where we will catch a train back to Jim and Jenni’s place. We pick the Sandridge Rail Bridge, which has been repurposed since its creation in 1888 as a link to Port Melbourne from the city. It now has monumental wire sculptures above plexiglass panes on the sides. Each of the 10-foot high by 4-feet wide panes, in alphabetical order as we walk toward the city, lists a country — Albania, Austria, etc. — and the number of immigrants from each who are Australian in 2001. Each pane also lists the languages spoken, major reasons for arrival (famine, gold rush, war are big), places other than their country of origin from which they came, and how many arrived in specific years. Very impressive snapshot of a city of 2.5 million.

We find a bottle shop for dinner wine and get the train back to Williamstown where we have dinner at Jim and Jenni’s who are meeting their son, Patrick, to discuss a menu for his 30th birthday celebration, which is tomorrow.

David practically passes out a half hour after his 9:30 bedtime and Cynthia stays up late with the family, diving into some interesting discussions about aboriginal and other politics.

Yet another mesmerizing day in Oz.