To Thine Own Self Be True

One of the greatest quotes from a classic teen movie seems appropriate to open this post...
Heather: It's just like Hamlet said, "To thine own self be true."
Cher: Hamlet didn't say that.
Heather: I think I remember Hamlet accurately.
Cher: Well I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn't say that. That Polonius guy did.
(Clueless)

Last night, I finally got to see a show at the Opera House...Hamlet. I chose it for a couple of reasons: 1. I could get $30 tickets because I'm under 27 (yay! for encouraging theater for us younger folk), 2. although I am enamored with the Bard, I have yet to see many of his plays live, 3. I read Hamlet in senior year and realized then that it would probably make much more sense on stage, and 4. it's Hamlet! Unfortunately, I couldn't convince anyone to go along with me because no one I asked shares my love of 3 1/2 hour tragedies set in Denmark.

In short, the show was fantastic. Though they spoke the lines as written by Shakespeare, the costumes and set were given a modern spin - i.e. the actors wore suits, button down shirts, and dresses - though the climactic fight scene was still fought with swords. I forgot just how many iconic Shakespearean quotes/scenes come from this play; there's the obvious "To be or not to be" speech, the scene involving a skull (which doesn't occur, contrary to popular belief, during the aforementioned speech), "to thine own self be true," and the oft misquoted "the lady protests too much" (often stated as "the lady doth protest too much"). All of the actors were superb, and it was clear they had studied the material and understood what they were saying.

Unsurprisingly, the actor that really stood out to me was Brendan Cowell - aka Hamlet. I did a little research when I got home, and found out that he is a bit of a theater Renaissance man in that he acts in all the major mediums (film, tv, and theater), writes critically acclaimed plays, and occasionally directs. He has also never had formal acting classes and has had roles on some hit Australian shows. I enjoyed this interview I stumbled across in which he talks specifically about this role: "You only get one shot at Hamlet."

There were a few groups of secondary school students in attendance and, unfortunately for all of us, one of the teachers got ill in the final act and the show had to be stopped to attend to her...wait for it...during Hamlet's death speech. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, it was a little devastating. There were a couple of good things that came out of it. First, it showed the Brendan Cowell doesn't have a monstrous ego, as it was actually he who reacted to the commotion in the audience and had the stage manager stop the show. When she had been taken care of, he preceeded to rewind and re-perform the final speech, even though he had already done so. Also, not to make light of the situation, but *spoiler* in the last act of Hamlet pretty much everyone dies. Thus, when the show was stopped, quite a few dead bodies re-animated to keep track of what was going on. Once the show recommenced one actress (Heather Mitchell playing Gertrude, Hamlet's mother) milked her return to death for all it was worth and got an appreciative laugh from the audience. In the end, though some of the mood was lost, the finale still brought tears to my eyes in the good way.

On a totally unrelated note, I closed my Commonwealth bank account on Tuesday (aka my Australian bank). This was really the first step toward my leaving and my final days - after completing three final papers in the last week and a half. It's definitely starting to set in that soon, I'll be leaving Australia for the States. I'm betting now that it will be bittersweet; I'll certainly be glad to be home and see friends and family I haven't seen in 4 or 5 months, but I'm definitely going to miss this place. Especially the not working part...

I will leave you with some night shots of Circular Quay I took before the play:


ps - I'm still behind on one post, my Blue Mountains trip with Ellen, but I'm headed off to New Zealand for 9 days tomorrow, so don't be expecting that before I get back. After I take my final, I'll try to spend a day getting caught up on everything (which will be heaps after all the adventures I plan to have in New Zealand). And with that, I'm off to pack.

Nature Walk

First, I want to apologize (again) for the long awaited new post. I've been wrapped up in travelling and uni work has finally kicked in; I guess I should probably at least turn my assignments in, even though the grades won't count toward my transcript. (And any one who actually knows me knows this is a vast understatement of how I feel about anything that is graded, so suffice to say that everything has been in on time and at least decently written.) I have done heaps of things since my last post, so expect a few rapid fire starting with this post.

With apologies out of the way, onto the Royal Botanical Gardens. I've been wanting to go to the Gardens for awhile, but just never seemed to make it there. One Saturday a few weeks ago, I finally got myself into the city to wander around for a few hours. Located in the city, much like central park, the Botanical Gardens are a nice, peaceful reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Sydney. As evidenced from the picture below, they are no more than a 5 minute walk from the Opera House. As it was a Saturday, I lucked out and the Governor's House (i.e. the official residence of the Governor of New South Wales, not to be confused with the Governor General) was open for touring. The Governor no longer permanently resides in the house and only uses it for special functions; the house was gorgeous but, unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Outside of Governor's House; Governor's gardens; view from the Botanical Gardens into the City



While the Gardens, as expected, had plenty of interesting flora and fauna (more on that later), there are some especially unique animals to be found around the garden. As I noticed in Canberra, there are wild cockatoos in Australia. The ones I saw in the Gardens were much more pretty than the grey ones I found in the capital; they were white with yellow plumage on the top of their heads (I'm sure this has a name, but I definitely don't know it). There was a whole flock of them wandering around, which was amazing to me because I'd only been that close to a handful of cockatoos before that in my life - we weren't big on pets in my house when I was growing up with the exception of the occasional guppies and my "free" hermit crab named Herbert who promptly died about a week after I brought him home. Besides, my sister was enough of a pet anyway...just kidding. Anyway, they were really beautiful to see flying around. The other really interesting animal was the, get ready for it, bats that were all over the place in one section of the Gardens. Apparently, these bats moved-in when their natural habitat was destructed; as I, unsurprisingly, went to the Gardens when they were open - aka during the day - there were literally hundreds of them sleeping in the trees above the path. Honestly, though I know that's what they do, I couldn't help but be nervous one was going to fall on my head as I walked down the path underneath them. Luckily, I am not afraid of bats as this is not the first time I've seen them either. We have quite a few in our neighbourhood, and there have been a handful of times that I've been coming home for the night and saw what I initially think is a bird until I realize it's a bat coasting through the air.

Wild cockatoo; many, many bats in a tree


Finally, there were some plants to look at. I kept my eye out for a waratah, the state flower of New South Wales, but couldn't be bothered to actually search for it. I did, however, see the Wollemi Pine (pronounced "wall-em-eye"), which is a tree that was was thought to be extinct (and has an ancient lineage) until they found one somewhere in the middle of nowhere. They have one planted in the park, and you can even buy a baby one in the gift shop so you can have an almost extinct pine of your very own (which I didn't because I didn't want to get arrested by US customs when I come back to the States). There were also some gigantic trees; one in particular, a fig tree, was massive. Most of them were guarded by fences meant to keep visitors away from their root structures and/or hollow trunks.

Wollemi pine; huge fig tree


All in all, it was a well spent sunny afternoon. Look soon for a recap of my long weekend in Melbourne, followed by a post on my Hunter Valley wine tour. I can't believe I've only got a little more than a month left here, but I've got plenty of travelling left to do in that time (New Zealand here I come).

Please Ignore the Fact that I have My Camera Out at Every Opportunity

Sorry a new post has been so delayed. I have been busy adjusting to this classes thing again as well as trying to get as much in as possible before school responsibilities started. In my first two weeks in Sydney, I managed to do a bunch of the major tourist attractions in the city (never say downtown).

1) Aquarium
The aquarium was really cool because they have tanks that you can basically walk through via tunnels. Apparently, Australia has the smallest penguins in the world, nurse sharks are almost extinct even though they only eat fish, and platypuses look like drift wood (aka it didn't come out and I have yet to see one).


Video of jellyfish (please ignore the fact that I forgot videos can only be taken horizontally):


2) Opera House
Although I plan to go to a show or two at the Opera House, I took a tour just to see as much as possible. Pavaretti wasn't a fan of the purple carpet, the largest organ in the world (with something like 10,000 pipes) is in the Concert Hall, and Jorn Utson (the architect) has never seen the finished building.


This is in the Utzon room; though it looks like a painting, the close-up should show you that it's actually a tapestry:




3) General City Sites
I walked across the harbour bridge and took a bunch of pictures.


All my pictures can be found on my flickr account: www.flickr.com/people/pass_away13