World-wide Spork

I am behind again, as is no surprise, and I have some travel to catch up on, which is one of my favorite topics. Before that, I thought I should take a moment to explain how all of the travel ended up happening so close together.

First of all, I subscribe to Portland Opera. I have been doing so since 1998. Occasionally, I will get advertisements for other opera things, but nothing has ever tempted me until about two and a half years ago when I received a solicitation from Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. They were building a new opera house, and they were going to inaugurate it with three consecutive full productions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

I should back up and explain that the Ring Cycle is a series of four operas with a continuing storyline. The most famous segment is probably Die Walkurie, because everyone has heard “The Flight of the Valkyrie”, and that is where it comes from.

Portland Opera does four or five operas a year, and I think that is fairly common, unless it’s the Met, so either you are just doing one of the series, and you lose some context, or you do the whole thing and that is your entire season. And if you are only doing one composer for your entire season, making it Wagner is a risk. All of the stereotypes of bombastic music delivered by fat women in Viking helmets originate there.

The point is, it’s a huge commitment. The way they were doing it was spreading the four nights over six days three weeks in a row. The continuity is great because you are seeing what happens the next night or the night after, and the musicians are the same and the same singers are doing the same characters as their story continues.

I personally do tend to prefer Italian and French opera, but I listened to the cycle on CD, and it really is beautiful. Plus I had never been to Toronto, so I signed up. It is hard to plan your life two years in advance though, so it is not surprising that there were complications. My time there was September 18th through the 24th.

My mother is from Italy, having come here because she married an American soldier who was stationed over there. She has been back to visit three times. She went with my father, older brother and older sister before I was born, and she went with my younger sisters twice while I was struggling to get through college, so I am the only one who has not been there. The only member of her family I have met is her oldest sister, who has come here a few times.

Mom’s last time over there was eleven years ago. We have thought about sending her many times, but there were always concerns with work and money, where you think maybe next year will be better. However, her oldest sister is twenty-one years older, and eventually you realize that you do not have forever, and maybe there is no such thing as a good time. When we had looked at all the different possibilities for who would go, and when, it ended up being me with Mom, and in October. We leave the 6th and come back on the 17th. I have less than two weeks in between getting back from Toronto and leaving for Italy.

My sisters and I also really like amusement parks. Disneyland is definitely where we go most, but we have talked at times about maybe taking an early morning flight on a Saturday, spending the day at Magic Mountain, and coming back that night. The idea has come and gone, but while Little Sister J was exploring the internet, looking at Great America in Santa Clara revealed some other interesting attractions nearby. As we were debating if we could do it, and when, she got scheduled for a business trip to Santa Clara at the end of August, and it seemed perfect, so she had us join her there on the Thursday, spending three days there.

As you can imagine, I am really pushing the limits of my available vacation time, but I don’t really regret it. I love travel. Go somewhere? Yeah! Almost anywhere. I mean, it’s not like it’s taking time away from my husband and children, or that I am worried about not progressing very much in my career. About the only grown-up responsibility I have now is a house (that will be a topic for another day), so I might as well have a hobby of some kind.

So these are the trips that I need to catch up on. I’m hoping I can write up Santa Clara and post it Friday morning, right before we leave, and then have installments on Toronto and Italy in the few weeks afterwards.

Next up? Well, my younger sisters turn thirty in February, about a month after I turn thirty-five. They have been looking at ways to make it special for a few years, originally thinking London, then Vegas with friends, then settling on Disneyland with just the three of us. About two months ago, J had the idea of Hawai’i. None of us have been there, and January should be a great time to go. M was very upset to lose Disneyland, but we argued that it might be better in April, so it’s a good thing I get more vacation in January because it’s going fast. Also, someone mentioned the possibility of just a weekend in Vegas in December, but I don’t think that one will really happen.

Still, it is going somewhere. Hmmm.