Tropfest

The world's largest short film festival right here in Sydney. A bring-your-own picnic style festival where a large screen in the center of a big field entertained the 70,000 people. 

Obviously, going to an event like this would take a lot of planning. For the first time in this entire trip, the group did a very good job preparing. We went to the grocery store for our picnic supplies, the liquor store for more picnic supplies, came home and made our lunches (I'm now excellent at hurry-up sandwich making), snagged Luke's frisbee, and headed out the door. It was an extremely hot day. One of the hotter ones I've had here. Since I like laughing at people, it pleased me to see that a few decided to wear pants. Yikes. 

Now, you wouldn't think it'd be hard to find an enormous festival like this. Especially when it takes place in a normally calm park (the Botanical Gardens of Sydney). BUT, we managed to stuff it up pretty good. We walked approximately 40 miles of garden paths before we realized we were headed in the wrong direction. Eventually, we did get there. That was a relief because we really needed to put all our stuff down. Why do bags get so heavy when beer is loaded into them? The place looked really cool and considering the gates to the festival had only recently opened, it was bumping with humans. 

^Stole this sweet pic from Lauren^

Upon arriving, I did what anybody with any sense would do. I looked for free stuff. Some of the best souvenirs are those you don't have to pay for. Unfortunately, the other thing about free stuff is that its usually flimsy, worthless, and pathetic. Which brings me to the free lounge chairs we were all given upon entry. They were orange, cardboard, fold-up chairs. Probably about as comfortable as a sandpaper pillowcase. When I would try to sit back in the chair, it would begin to crumble beneath me at about 1/4 the pressure I wanted to comfortably apply to it. The grass might have been a better option, but I battled it out with this horrible chair all day anyways. The other free item I received was a program giving the details of the festival. I did like this but I'm pretty sure I lost it. All I have are the pictures and the memories left. Sorry, I didn't save the flattened chair. 

Awkwardly trying to balance my weight in awful chair

The heat was very...hot. My first move upon arriving was to take my shirt off and again apply sunscreen. Let me remind everyone (especially those reading this who wore pants) to imagine the severe discomfort that was felt by those who had their legs covered in heavy denim. The second move after the shirt removal was the removal of a VB from the 6 pack. This was followed by the removal of the frisbee from Luke's backpack. We played a solid 30+ minutes of frisbee. People don't mind coming up and hopping in the games. Frisbee is not nearly as popular here as it is in the states and some even seemed intrigued by it. Tossing the disc is quickly becoming one of my favourite things to do. I'll thank my dad for providing me with a bit of experience in this field. 

When I took my sandwich out of the bag at lunch time, I was surprised to find that it wasn't soggy and was still 100% edible. So I ate it. I also ate pringles, carrots, cheesy bread, and the delicious product known as Nutella. It's a hazelnut/cocoa spread that does exist in the states but I'd never heard of it until I got here. Finding out about Nutella is in the running for most significant moment of my life. It's delicious and I eat more of it than anybody should eat of anything. 

The time came for us to view all the finalist's short films. There were funny ones, sad ones, ones that make you think...overall a great show. I'm so completely glad I didn't fall asleep during it or I would have missed some really good stuff. Visit-  http://tropfest.ninemsn.com.au/ to get a look at the films we saw. The title of the winning film is "Be My Brother". Follow that link and go to the second page of Tropfest '09 films to see it. Boo yeah. 

An all day picnic/film festival/great time. Pretty much my kind of thing.