ANZAC Day and Opera House fun :)

As crazy busy as it has been with projects, papers, and homework out the Australian wazoo, there has of course been some time for fun!! This past weekend, April 25th, is a national holiday celebrated here in Australia called ANZAC Day which stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corp which celebrates the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand who served their country. The most celebrated army endeavour was the battle of Gallipoli which is pretty ironic because it was a huge failure for the ANZAC soldiers and they fought hard and gained nothing. It shows how Australia tends to celebrate the underdogs. Either way, on ANZAC day in downtown Sydney there is a huge parade and memorial and dawn services in almost every community. I got to see some of the parade in the city and then me and my roommates headed to Red Fern to be part of the Aboriginal Memorial Service. The Aboriginal Memorial service also commenced with a parade which was a lot different from the city's parade. It was simple and yet just as moving. The Service had a really good turn out with speakers that included the NSW Premier, Tony Barry (Sergeant Callahan from the movie Australia, and several influential leaders in the Aboriginal community including Ray Minnecon. It was a really unique and neat service full of traditional welcomes, dances, songs, and concluded with an Australia staple, Harry De Cafe meat pies. I feel like I got a really good grasp of ANZAC day in Australia by witnesses two very different celebrations that were both meaningful to the citizens here.

Regina. Spektor. Opera House!!! Regina Spektor at the Opera House was an amazing concert. The atmosphere of the Opera House just amplified our excitement by about a million! The concert was sold out and it was packed! I was so excited because we (the eight of us who went) had the BEST seats in the house literally. We were on the side of the stage and the grand piano faced us so we got to look directly at her the whole performance. We were in the first rows of our section too so the view was incredible. Regina Spektor is definitely one of the quirkiest artist ever. She said she painted her nails for us and kept laughing/giggling in her little girl voice that she wasn't used to being surrounded on stage. She did all of the beloved classic songs and a couple quirky ones I had never heard before which was also awesome. She played the piano, keys, and the guitar which made me really excited. My favorite song she did was Samson because it was the first song of her encore and the lights were all down except for a spot on her and a light on the disco/mirror ball which made it look like we were floating in the middle of the sky. I think we were all totally mesmerized. After the concert we went and goofed around taking fun pictures in front of the Harbour Bridge and the whole night was a definite success!