The Opera

On Saturday we went to the opera. Odessa has one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world. It has undergone extensive renovation and re-opened in September 2007. When I went to get the tickets, I was already to try my Russian language skills. I had written out a couple of sentences in Russian to ask how much the tickets cost and that I wanted six tickets (We later ended up with eight.) When I got to the box office, the woman knew enough English, that along with pointing to the Russian printout from the website, I purchased the six tickets. Later, when Julia came for our English and Russian lessons, she and I went to purchase two more tickets and to stop by the restaurant to make reservations for dinner after the performance.

The opera was La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. We enjoyed the performance from the third row, so we nearly felt like we were in the action. Gail and I enjoyed the fact that for once during this trip, we weren't the only ones in the room that couldn't understand what was being said. Since all the singing was in Italian, none of our party understood the words. After the Opera, we went to eat at a traditional Ukraine restaurant. We had a great time of eating and visiting. Steve finished the evening with desert - chocolate pie with chili pepper. It was more like a chocolate cheesecake. You could only taste the chocolate, but the burn from the pepper built up in the back of your mouth as you ate. It wasn't an intense burn, but you could tell that it was there. A very interesting recipe.