Restoration

We are packed and ready to leave when it is all over. Found out we can leave our stuff in our room until late tonight. We took a short walk in the park and now Arvin is taking a short nap. He has been holding up admirably but it has been a very busy week.

I took this photo close to our dorm building. I might mention that "dorm building" is not the first thing you would think of if you saw where we are staying. It is very elegant and has gold leaf all over the place. When you get upstairs inside, yes, it looks like a dorm building.

This building that is being worked on is just a couple of doors down. The young fellow is an apprentice I think. He has been polishing the brass work you see on the right. An older fellow has been giving him directions as he worked. Looks like he is doing an excellent job.

I decided to do my blip now as once we start going today, we won't stop until we reach Helena's apartment late tonight. At two o'clock there is a lecture about the opera. At 3:10 is a fanfare. At 3:30 the opera begins. I will try to take some photos in the theater and at curtain calls and post them tomorrow on my Blipfolio. The opera is four hours long. Afterwards there is a pub party for the cast and season ticket holders which includes us. I think we will go. We went last time we came here eight years ago and it was a lot of fun.

Have a great day all!

Update on the day... since I want to use this as a personal journal I want to add the rest of our day. After our rest we went to Starbucks to pick up a sandwich for later and stoke Arvin with coffee so he wouldn't fall asleep during the opera.

First we attended the lecture by Ellen Harris who is an expert on Handel and the period when he lived. The talk was fabulous. Handel was only 19 when he wrote Almira and yet it is musically a mature work. We learned all sorts of information about the opera and how Handel came to write it.

Then we had literally 15 minutes to munch down our sandwiches and attend the opera. We were in row F, very close to the stage. I was a bit distracted by the man in front of me but at intermission he traded with his wife who was shorter so I could see right over her. ;-) The opera was fabulous! After an hour and a half we had a long intermission and then came back for more. Again fantastic. Sets, costumes, dancing, young expert and beautiful voiced singers. Fantastic! Then there was a five minute intermission. I literally ran out, downstairs, did my thing, upstairs and got back to a dark theater but still able to walk to our seats. Got there. No Arvin. Oh no. The opera began and I thought about going to find him but realized he might be inside somewhere else and I might miss the rest of the opera. So I settled and watched and loved it just as much as before. When it was over I quickly walked out and there was Arvin. He had seen the rest standing in the back as he was a bit later than I was back from intermission. We were so happy to see each other. This tells me so much about us that each was worried about the other and we were so glad that we both got to see the rest of the opera. I am so lucky to have that sweet man as my husband!

After that we couldn't really deal with a loud party so we went out alone for dinner (at a loud sports pub it turned out but oh well) and had a lovely time talking and laughing together and with the waitress who was a kick.

We went back to the dorm, picked up our stuff and took a taxi to Helena's where Bunny was waiting to be fed. Only odd event there was the smoke alarm which decided it needed a new battery and began to chirp loudly. We couldn't fix it so we wore earplugs to bed. That worked.