Growing Roots in Sydney

Made it safetly to Sydney and have settled in Oskar and Mine's new accomodation in Balmoral(house pictured below), just north of Sydney. We are a half a block away from the beach, cafes/restaurants, and art classes just up the hill. Needless to say, I'm in heaven. Instead of pigeons and rats they have parots and spiders. I haven't seen any spiders yet, but I have seen some really incredible birds. Like this colored parrot pictured below. He and his partner were collecting seeds from the tree in our front yard. I've also seen a really large white cuckatoo (which made loud screeching noises) and a couple of kuckaberras (not photographed below).

I've started my art classes at NSA, Northshore School of Art and am really happy with it so far. My teacher has given loads of information on local contemporary artists and some history on native art. I'm going to ART SYDNEY next weekend which should give me a really good grasp on contemporary art in NSW. Looking forward to it. She also told me about these long weekend trips that drive you into the desert, camp, and paint/photograph desert scenes; which sounds incredible. I'll look into that.