And Now We Become Tourists

Last night we went to Morrison's Academy Hall in Crieff for Scottish Opera's production of the comic opera, Die Fledermaus. The production was updated to modern times so that the grand ball given by Count Orlovsky was instead a disco, complete with Karaoke, at the grand quarters of a very different Count Orlovsky, a young boy with long blond hair dressed like a rapper. The butt of the joke, Eisenstein, was a famous football (soccer) star being sent to jail for 2 weeks for head-butting a player on the opposing team, or perhaps it was an official. The 7 principles played all the roles and provided the chorus as well and were accompanied by a pianist who worked his poor fingers to the bone. It was a truly innovative and enjoyable evening. The voices were powerful and beautiful and the updated story still worked just fine with the music.

We have just finished packing our bags for a 5-day sojourn in the south of France. In the early morning hours we will get up and drive to Prestwick Airport so that we can check in by 4:30 a.m. Monday morning. Our Ryanair flight leaves at 6:30 for Marseille. There we will hire a car and drive, via Aix-en-Provence, to Cassis on the Mediterranean.

Our hosts are our friends Claudine and Bernard Dussert who are French but have lived in Bethesda for over 30 years. (Claudine and I went to graduate school together at American University.) They are taking their annual holiday in France and have, for years, said one of these years we must come visit them while they are there. We will stay with them from Monday mid-day until Thursday morning. Then we'll move on to Aix-en-Provence for a day and an overnight. We fly back to Scotland on Friday.

Don and I have only been to France once, in 2000, when we visited friends in Paris for 3 days. We really loved that visit and now look forward to seeing more of the country. Neither of us speaks French but we have been working on a few crucial phrases: Where is the toilet? being the most important. (I imagine if we had gone there when we were in our 20s, we might have worked first on Where is the bar?)

Helen and Gordon Rae have invited us for an early supper there this evening so that we don't have to bother with food, leftovers, or clean-up tonight. Wasn't that thoughtful? So we're about to head over there for our 5:30 light supper so we can get to bed early.

The blog will take a short break. I will resume--with some lovely photos, I hope--on Friday or Saturday.

Au revoir!