Opera

Upping our game today by attending an opera. It is walking distance from our apartment but not comfortably, while wearing new shoes.  Word of advice to my future self, wear sneakers for the walk and switch into nice shoes after arriving to the destination. Aside from getting a couple of blisters, it was a lovely day. Jack walked ahead to a pharmacy and purchased band aids making the walk home manageable. 

Neither of us has been to an opera before but we both enjoyed it. The singing was amazing and the orchestra played a pivotal role in the telling of the story. I think the closest I've gotten to this experience may have been Disney's Fantasia. 

The opera was Tosca and sung in Italian. There was closed captioning in English and French, so we were able to follow along. They display the captioning above the stage which worked out surprisingly well. I was a little nervous about it being 3 hours long but with 2 intermissions, it wasn't too long. The audience was an eclectic mix of types of people and ages. I was expecting an older crowd but there were a lot of young people as well. One thing they had in common, is the surprisingly large number of people who were wearing black and wearing scarfs. It seems to be the Parisian uniform. I did have on a black dress today but didn't wear a scarf. 

We stopped on the way home at one of the bar/restaurants, on the corner near our place. We sat outside and had a glass of wine and watched people pass by. We also had a snack, escargot for Jack and roasted cheese and honey for me. The diversity here is amazing and makes for great people watching. It seems to be a national pass time.