Moonlight Cinema

So in the end, we did make it to the Moonlight Cinema, and had a great time! Too bad the weather yesterday was so crappy... our original plan had been to cook up a bunch of picnic foods to take with us. But with the weather so iffy and cold, we weren't sure if we were going to actually go or not, so no food got made. Instead the bunch of us (me, Jen, Irene, Yo - as the Canadian contingent - and our house mates Maria, Suzanna, Maria's boyfriend Martin and Martin's friend John - as the Dutch contingent) stopped off at various fast-food places downtown before making our way to the Botanical Gardens. Meh.

It was an interesting evening! The Gardens are pretty big and although we'd been instructed to enter through Gate D, there were no signs once we were inside to point the way to the movie. We found it in the end, but I can't help but think we took a longer route getting there than we strictly needed to. Turned out they'd set up the outdoor cinema on a nice sloping hill overlooking the lake. When we got there, only a few other folks had arrived, and there was lots of space for us to spread out. Only problem was, there was no screen! We figured they were still setting up, and since all those already seated were all facing downhill towards the lake, that's what we did too. We rented these fun beanbag 'beds' for $6 each, and let me tell you, I was sure glad we had by the end of the evening! I swear I'm getting old, what with my back being so crotchety and all. If I'd had to sit or lie on the grass for the whole evening, I'm not sure I would've been able to move at the end. :-)

Suzanna, Maria and I needed to use the washroom, so once we had our seating are all set up, we headed off through the gardens to find the toilets. I like the stamp the cinema folks stamped on our wrists as we exited (so we could get back in); it said "I'll be back!" - which led us to doing all sorts of terrible Shwartzenegger-impressions all evening long. Anyhow, when we got back from the bathroom, they were finally hoisting the screen. It was SO COOL. It was essentially a huge, inflatable balloon - and larger than any indoor movie screen I've ever seen. Once it was fully inflated, it completely blocked the view of the lake... so I wonder if that's why the organizers waited until just before movie time to put it up?

The movie we watched was "Hairspray" and I've seen it before, but it's a great movie so I sure didn't mind seeing it again. But (not surprisingly) I kept getting distracted by the nighttime wildlife in the Gardens! Turns out that, just like Sydney, there's a big colony of flying foxes (fruit bats with a 3-foot-plus wingspan) living in and around the city. And as the sun set, the bats took flight. The first one I spotted I thought was a gull, it was that big... but then I realized the wings were all wrong. Then there was another, and another, and then HUNDREDS of them flying by. It was only afterwards that I realized what was so eerie about watching the bats - in the movies, whenever large hordes of bats are flying around, they are accompanied by a 'scary' screeching/skittering noise... but these bats were completely silent. I'm pretty sure that these bats don't use echolocation at all - after all, they eat fruit, not insects. I know they can make a pretty serious ruckus - I visited the bat colony in Sydney, after all - but when they fly, they're silent.

Anyhow, like I said, it was eerie watching all the bats fly by, but cool at the same time! Throughout the movie I kept glancing at the sky and there were always a few bats overhead, searching the Gardens for fruit. At the end of the movie we had to walk back through the Gardens, which have precious few lights along the walkways, I'd like to add! (Although I guess that makes sense since typically the Gardens are closed to the public in the evenings...) There were a couple places where it was pretty dark, and the trees ahead of us were making rustling sounds! Turned out that the bats were in the trees, eating the fruit - and they would flap off whenever we approached. Let me tell you, it's something else to have a bat with a 3-foot wingspan take off out of a tree right by your head!

We got to the tram stop and that's where I discovered that I'd lost my Metcard, which was annoying because (a) I'd already paid for my evening's ride, and now I would have to buy another ticket, and (b) there were still about 6 rides left on the card. Wah! Thankfully Jen and Irene were able to scrape together enough change that I could get on the tram. Blah. The tram ride home was... um... interesting. There was another group of folks about our age further down the tram, and they were very, very drunk. Which was annoying but wouldn't have been a problem except that a number of our house mates who had come to the movies with us were also drinking beer - on the tram! (Strictly speaking, drinking in public is not allowed here, and consuming alcohol on public transit can get you kicked off/arrested/fined, but it's still a common practice and generally folks just ignore it.) Anyway, since some of our friends were drinking beer, this one really large, really drunk guy came wandering up the tram and tried to make friends with us - in the hopes of scoring some free beer. Gotta give it to my house mate Yo, he knows how to handle himself... the guy who'd come over was a head taller and much more heavily-built than Yo, but Yo fended him off with friendly words and jokes, and the guy eventually left us alone. Phew! I mean, really... the guy was probably completely harmless, but I can't help it if my mental "warning" flags go up when confronted with a strange situation, can I?

So between last evening's adventures and the fact that I'd hardly slept the night before, I was pretty tired - so as soon as we got home I headed straight to bed!

Today we will be off on another 'adventure' this afternoon... to points unknown... bwa ha ha...