Day 14, Genoa

Wow, it's hard to believe we're on day 14 already! I should have taken some photos on the way from Torino to Genoa, but was chatting with the other people in our tour group instead. It got very very beautiful, lots of tunnels and mountains all around, and suddenly at one point we were looking out over the Mediterranean. Then drove down and down into the center of town. Our hotel is spitting distance from the opera house, and the sidewalks on this street are all done in tile mosaic. Other than that, I have hardly an impression of Genoa so far, but tomorrow there'll be time to see the place some more.

Tonight's opera was "I Vespri Siciliani" by Verdi. You'd think a four-hour opera would be impossible to sit through, but in fact it was really captivating. The only frustrating part is just not knowing Italian. They're singing in Italian, and then they project the words, but those are in Italian too. So I guess it's all a valuable learning opportunity, but basically I just sit there not knowing what the heck is going on in the plot. But tonight I wasn't bored at all, because the music was really great, and I find it all the more entertaining when I have a view of the conductor. That's the thing about opera, and I think I might've written about this before-- there's so much going on, that if one thing doesn't impress you, something else will. But in this particular performance, there was a lot to write home about. The singing was phenomenal (I thought so, and that's also according to the experts in my group), the orchestra was totally rockin', the sets were really cool, the lighting was creative... You know, if I'm going to hang out with all these serious opera-goers, I'm going to have to adopt some more opera-esque adjectives like "magnificent" and "extraordinary" and "outstanding". For now I'm content to just listen to everyone else's comments as we walk out of the theatre, as I think to myself, "Man, that was pretty cool. The orchestra totally rocked."