Oprah Fever

I was pretty ambivalent about the whole Oprah visiting Australia.  I thought it would be cool for publicity for Australia, but with the whole QANTAS F-ups lately and the dollar being so sky high that nothing could really boost it for Australia.

But it's hard not to get caught up the excitement of it all.  Oprah had her show filmed on the steps of the Sydney Opera House and there were things on the news, like Hugh Jackman flying in on a flying fox and then getting stuck and injuring himself, and how Oprah generously gave 250k to a couple with cancer so they could have the year off to enjoy themselves, she gave everybody who attended her show a necklace with pearl or diamond, and a whole bevy of stars were on stage.

Nurse C, one of the girls at work actually went!  She was telling me about it, and she said that she was 7 rows from the front and that she was quite close to all the american guests that Oprah brought with her.  She saw Bon Jovi, Bono, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.  She saw the whole thing with Hugh Jackman and she said he had a tiny little cut on his face, and his kids were crying, and his wife Deborah-Lee was there saying "I told him not to do that! I said he shouldn't do that!" and they had to cut filming twice - once so that he could get patched up, and a paramedic hugged him and apparently Hugh said he'd never been hugged by a paramedic before, and at that time St Johns Ambulance and a whole bunch of other first aid people came on... she said it was overkill!  And then they had to stop filming again so Hugh could sit with his kids and stop them from crying to let them know he was alright.

I asked her what was the best thing about the event, and she said the atmosphere, seeing Bono and she couldn't think of a third thing.  She was just excited about it all, said it was such a beautiful day and that everyone was super excited to be there.

Nobody was allowed to take photos and security walked around quite frequently to make sure people didn't film or take pictures.