Our family is so impressed by how faithfully a certain traveler chronicles her annual trips abroad. Jr. Blogger felt inspired to do likewise.
After waking up to a glorious morning of the first day of our much-anticipated staycation, W headed off to a men’s breakfast with some locals while B took a walk. The laziness lag really hit me hard so I slept in then went to do some computer work for a few hours.
By then it was about twelve o clock so we lunched on a lovely meal B cooked up from a local market called ethay efrigeratorray. We’d read about an ice cream social happening at the Grant Park so we headed over there. It turns out, local ice cream is delicious. Notable favors were the mint leaf basil with chocolate from a restaurant called Lundblad and mango sorbet we cooked up ourselves. After that we were pretty pooped so we relaxed at our rented house for an hour then headed off to the biggest event of the day: the San Fransisco Opera. Tonight’s show was the Marriage of Figaro.
We packed some dinners to go and headed off.
It was exciting to drive across the famed bay bridge and through the city I had learned so much about from Pixar’s inside out. I was eager to see how accurate it was but was disappointed to find that the people here don’t have little beings controlling them from the inside.
During the pre-show activities we learned that the set of the opera is actually built by starting with the last act and working “backwards” to act 3, then 2 and 1. I’m certainly more of a modern musical theater nerd than an opera nerd but I was nonetheless interested in the production details and excited for the show. And I wasn’t disappointed.
Since we knew nothing about opera and this one was in Italian, B read us a summary of the plot.
The ATT Theatre had lovely acoustics and the show was entertaining and beautifully performed. I found myself noticing the fascinating gender dynamics which drove the plot throughout the show. As the marriage of Figaro is set in the 18th century, men hold almost all the power in the society. The male leads are constantly objectifying and cheating on the women. However, while the men hold the power in the society, the women held the power in the story. They had complex plans and quick-witted comebacks that even the supposedly clever Figaro had trouble grasping. At the first intermission, B and I set off on a quest for a boba tea stand we’d seen on the way in. We got a little lost and after finding out way out of a maintenance hall, were convinced to try out a new karaoke app promoted by a nearby booth. I wanted a free t shirt so I agreed to sing along to Let It Go from Frozen using the app which played music through headphones. When I finished, I collected my complimentary t and was mortified to hear that I could “see my performance on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.” Great.
We finally got our boba and made it back to our seats to watch act two. At the second intermission, we were pooped and (although it’s not the hardcore way) decided to head home. A very good start to our staycation 2015.
A group of locals singing the national anthem. It sounded beautiful even though we couldn’t understand it. Our San Franciscan is a little rusty.
An exotic fruit we bought from a street vendor who claimed buying from him was the only safe way.
Bora's Notebook 