Classical music, boring Australians and conjunctivitis

So i went to see André Rieu last night at Telstra dome. I went with my mum, dad, nonna and auntie. I was one of very few people there that was less than half a century old - even my parents were looking pretty hip and happening. So the show begins on time (unusual - most things i go to i can easily rock up an hour late and it still won't have begun, but i guess old people are more punctual) and he begins his beyootiful music.

and it just reminded me of how BORING Australians are at concerts. It's like as if no one knows how to act - and no one is willing to act spontaneoulsy or attract attention to themselves. if you just want to listen to music, and sit still... well go listen to the cd at home! if anyone has seen Rieu's concert's on dvd - well they're not very normal - his waltzes MAKE people jump out of their seats and dance. when i first watched a dvd of his from his home town it made me so happy i wanted to cry. i love, LOVE that in europe everyone is crazy - his entire town was dancing, everyone crashing into eachother, parents dancing with their children, older couple swaying slowly with smiles stretched across their faces. And last night, we, as an audience, as an Australian audience, were just so boring i was surprised to see that André and his orchestra remained energetic. we couldn't even clap for the duration of a song. we fail miserably at being a good audience - he's so never going to come back to Australia.

anyway, just before intermission, my eyesight in my right eye suddenly clouded over - i thought a bug had flown into my eye.

Me: Mum! Mum! what's in my eye? over my pupil? i can't see!
Mum: uh, hang on stay still for a second... oh it's just some sleep. actually... i think you have conjunctivitis...
Me: ew! (wiping it away, totally grossed out that it was quite yellow) nah... oh... shit...no

the last 4 days just came rushing back to me - me meeting with a housing worker whose eyes appeared to be weeping, followed by the last few days where i thought my hayfever was playing up big time cos my eyes were really scratchy and painful, followed by yesterday morning where i laughed so much i cried and i thought that my eyes felt cleaner - how the hell did i not notice sooner? ok so i haven't had conjunctivitis since i was 7 but still - who feels 'cleaner' after crying?

so i tried my hardest to stay focussed on the concert, but 4 hours later on the drive home i was a blithering, swollen mess. I cleaned my eye with saline, and because the light was really killing me (i can't believe i did this) i put an eyepatch on to sleep. woke up this morning at 6am feeling like there were razors between my eyeball and the lid - washed again with saline. took 30 minutes to even get my eye open - YUK!

anyway - called in sick, spent all morning sending disgusting pictures of my eye to workmates, they messagesd back pirate jokes. Happy happy joy joy.

went to the doctor's at 1pm. she totally freaked and ran all these other tests on my eye cos she thought it had to be way more than just conjunctivitis - nope, turns out i just have the worst case in the world.

went home and no one was responding to my messages or answering my calls. within 2 minutes i was so bored that i would have taken my eyeball out to look at it properly just for something to do. started googling André Rieu when i began writing this blog to check the spelling of his last name.

hmm... i wonder if he's doing a concert in Italy when i'm there?

let's check.

oh my.

he seems to be performing in his hometown of Maastricht on Denmark on the 10th, 11th and 12th of July.

now, i don't know, but as far as i'm concerned that enough to be a coincidence for me. because i'm getting to Rome at 7am on Friday the 10th but i can't check in to my florence student accomodation till Sunday afternoon. i was trying to work out somewhere i could go for 2 days but i wasn't interested in Rome, been there done that. i was wanting to go to somewhere totally new, i was thinking of Perugia.

and this concert seemed to fall in my lap, right?

well i bought a ticket anyway, spent the rest of the evening trying to work out how i'm going to get there. i think, in the end, i'll just end up going to my travel agent that booked me the tickets and pay a change fee to go singapore - copenhagen instead of rome.

waited till my parents left last night to tell my brother and sister what i'd done - they were rapt. woke up this morning and mum said 'so... i hear you're going to see André Rieu in Denmark?' the craziest thing is that neither sibling told her... and i didn't write about my secretive purchase on Facebook - cos i know she stalks me on there!