In a rather last-minute display of civic involvement and an earnest desire to get some “cultcha” for once on a Saturday night, Amy, Snookums, and I headed into the city for tonight’s big free Sydney Festival event: Symphony in the Domain. Unfortunately 20,000 other people had gotten there before us, so we were sitting way, way off behind a tree in probably the only acoustically-poor section of the park. It was still fun though. We nibbled and munched our way through an assortment of healthy snacks and even knocked back a couple glasses of wine. (Ooh, contraband!) Given that the theme was Gershwin and the conductor knew how sophisticated Sydney summer concertgoers are (i.e. not very), he began with the obvious but still impressive “Rhapsody in Blue.” They even trotted out singers for a few numbers including one of my favorites, Caroline O’Connor. It was a beautiful night and most people seemed content to just treat it as a big communal picnic with some lovely background music, which suited us just fine. Next year we’ll know to get there earlier!