A funny thing happened on the way to the Opera House

So . . . (a digression after only one word: I REALLY overuse the word “so” in writing. I’m not good at beginnings; I am definitely a concluder—cut to the chase, get to the bottom line. ((digression in a digression: the irony is not lost on me!)) This trait always posed a problem for me when it came to writing papers; and as a Lit major, that was a LOT of papers. I had no idea how I was going to write my 80-page thesis. What is there to say? They came; they wrote.)

Here’s a pic of Tolkien. Why? Because blogs should have pics and I wrote my thesis on him. He’s awesome, seriously, look at him. Holla Middle Earth!

So, anyway, this entry is, eventually, going to be about my Australia trip. You’d think my blog would be brimming with tales of that trip. And it should be, but I’ll just conclude: I went to Australia; it was freakin’ awesome! Holla Newcastle!

Stian, Katrina, Oskar, and I all went to Sydney for the last 2 days I was there. I was flying out of Sydney, and even though this was my second trip down under, I’d never seen SY other than while flying in and out, which is a shame because it’s really quite fabulous. I felt like I was in London. Except London has tons of Arabs and Sydney has tons of Asians.

So that night we wandered around Sydney, marveling at its insane gorgeousness. It was a perfect night. The moon was huge and everything had that ambery glow. It was a bit after Oskar’s, aged 2, bedtime, and we thought for sure he’d just fall asleep in his stroller, right? What aged 2 child wouldn’t? The lovely amber moonlight; the slight crispness in the air; the millions of people chattering, loudly; the sudden booming of the trains (which Oskar is obsessed with); the fireworks! If all of that isn’t conducive to sleeping, then I don’t know what is!

So we were roughly here:

when a sudden burst of fireworks, the big 4th of July kind, went off over the opera house. We could only see the very tip top of them as they burst up above the trees and slightly behind the OH. Katrina grabbed my arm and took off running towards them. I am not in shape, at all, and we were not close. We were making our way around the harbor and towards the fireworks, when she said, “come on, this is a short cut” and headed up a huge mountain staircase that looked like it was cut for giants. She was scampering up, two huge steps at a time, as I pulled myself up slower and slower. It was at this point that I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I tried to get her to go on, but she wouldn’t leave me, and so we did not reach the opera house in time to see the last of the fireworks.

We waited for Stian and the not surprisingly awake Oskar to catch up with us. Stian was like, “seriously, trains and fireworks?!”

We ambled on over to the opera house, where there was a really cool photography exhibition going on outside. Katrina and I looked at that as Stian wheeled Oskar on past to the back part of the OH that faces the water.

And that was when the fireworks started again; Trine and I raced to the back of the OH as Stian raced away from it. We passed each other, K and I full of delight and S full of consternation and incredulity. And then, finally, there we were, directly under the fireworks. It was spectacular.

I am happy to say that sometime after this, 10 pm or a bit later, Oskar did eventually, in spite of chatter, trains, and fireworks fall asleep.

K and S concocting a sort of barrier between Oskar and all that would thwart his sleep.

That was the second time I’ve ever been directly under real fireworks; it’s pretty incredible. The other time was while I was living in Budapest. I was watching the first Lord of the Rings movie, with my friends Jen and Greg. We were at the part where Pippin knocks the skeleton down the well and then you hear the booming. I remember reading that in the book and being totally freaked out. Well, anyway, at the EXACT same moment the booming started in the movie, we heard a booming outside. We sat bolt upright, stared at each other for a few seconds, and then ran outside, where, at the house across the street, they were setting off fireworks—the real kind. Bizarre.

Oh, I’ve come full circle. Tolkien to Fireworks. Fireworks to Tolkien. I love symmetry!