Thursday 30 October 2014

Les Miserables Exhibition

Yesterday was a rather busier day than the one before! I was scheduled to drop my car off in Ringwood to be repaired, so decided that seeing as I was halfway to the city, Caitlin and I could use the free tickets we won to see the Les Miserables From Page to Stage Exhibition at the State Library.

I met R in Coldstream and dropped LiAM and Amelie off to go home with her to spend the day playing with V, and Caitlin and I continued on to drop the car off. We got a courtesy taxi to Ringwood Station then caught the train into the city. We had a funny moment when I tried to eat the hard boiled eggs I'd bought with us and couldn't crack the shell... I decided to eat something else for then and try the eggs later (and they cracked easily when I tried them later in the afternoon).

Getting off the train at Melbourne Central, Caitlin and I both felt like tourists from the country - there were so many shops and people and things happening - we've been to the city lots in the last few years, but I think we just weren't expecting it to be that crazy right at the railway station, and it was a bit overwhelming.

Neither of us had been to the State Library before, and I would have like to see it without the scaffolding all over it - but it was very impressive inside and now I want to go back and hang around in the book areas.... The Exhibition was great, we both really loved it. It started with a history of Victor Hugo and pictures and descriptions of Paris in the time that he was alive and when Les Mis was set. They had a scanned copy of the original Les Mis manuscript and some pieces of parchment he'd scribbled notes on, and the quills he wrote it with - very exciting. Lots of history then of productions of the story in all forms and many countries, including one of the costumes that Russell Crowe wore in the most recent movie. I really really wanted to touch it (and Caitlin was the same with the costume worn by Helena Bonham Carter - as she'll always associate her with Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter, so it felt like only a couple of degrees of separation from us to Harry...) but we restrained ourselves and took notice of the DO NOT TOUCH sign. It was cool to be standing that close. We laughed at seeing pictures of Hugh Jackman as Valjean, as Hugh is popping up all over the place for us at the moment, and Anne Hathaway as Fantine, since we'd watched Ella Enchanted 3 times the day before... We listened to a French version of 'On My Own' and looked at some of the original lyrics-in-progress of I Dreamed a Dream (in English) and the scene where Marius and Cosette meet (in French). Then we moved into the fun part of the exhibit (as we hadn't already had a lot of fun). This part was about the musical production and had lots of costumes, props, and interactive bits. My favourite was the 25th Anniversary Concert being shown on a massive screen above the stage, and especially Lea Salonga singing 'I Dreamed A Dream'. Caitlin's favourite was being able to dress up in real costumes from previous Australian productions of the musical. She spent about half an hour dressing up and could have stayed longer if we didn't have a train to catch...

Leaving the library the sun had come out (it had been cloudy and cold when we arrived) and there were people all over the lawn in front of the library, having lunch in the sun. Caitlin was quite overwhelmed with the number of people around, it was very very busy, even more so than when we'd arrived. On the way to the station we grabbed some sushi (for me) and Subway (for C), and a natural icy pole (just fruit and water and sugar) from a guy at a pop up store. Back on the train where we ate our lunch then looked at all the photos on Caitlin's camera, including lots of her in costume from the Exhibition (if I remember I'll add some here after she downloads them). It was a wonderful girls day out and I'm so glad we managed to squeeze the Exhibition into our very busy month.

Amelie and R met us at the bus stop in Yarra Glen, we had a snack, then R took us up to Guides. I went back to R's place where LiAM was still very happily playing with V - they were playing the Wii at this point and had had a great day together. They'd all spent time at the park and had a big walk and run into some friends - including Amelie's new best friend who she'd really been hoping to see this week. The girls went for a walk at Guides as well so Amelie was pretty exhausted by the time she got back.

Tony came and picked us up from R's and the girls from Guides, then finally home. We put on the DVD of the 10th Anniversary Les Miserables concert (which I bought at the gift shop) and watched that throughout the evening in between jumping on the trampoline, playing on iPad, cooking a roast for tea, doing some work on the computer. This version was quite remarkable and we all kept coming back into the lounge room to watch particular songs - I'm very happy that I bought it! It has Lea Salonga playing Eponine and doing the best version of 'On My Own' (my favourite) that I've ever heard - just blows me away every time.

Everyone was pretty tired after our big day and settled to bed pretty easily. I had a bath and felt much more relaxed and crashed pretty quickly myself.

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