Snowboards and the Opera

Tues Jan 24 - Work today was productive and I finally felt involved. We are opening our skatepark today, so we had a lot of preparation and paperwork to do before the meeting with the kids and their parents at 4pm. I watched a few skate videos to try and find kids wearing protective gear and helmets, it was pretty hard, but we found a good one to show in the background during the meeting. I also worked on snowboards all morning and finally started to do all of the complete steps to finish a board. I did pretty good, the waxing is a lot harder to get the groove of than I thought it would be. I also asked Kim, my boss for now, if I could get fitted for a board and boots so I can take a set with me Saturday for our trip. She told me "Hell Yes" and now I'm already to break some bones on Saturday. JUST KIDDIN, actually probably not. There's always injuries after those trips. Rosario cooked my pasta for lunch, it was delicious. The spaghetti noodles were huge though. Anyways, I had to get my Opera Trip ready for the night. I had to find the tickets and get them ready for the customers. We also had to rent a big tour bus and find a driver so I could get them to the theatre on time around 5pm. I had to leave work early around 3 so I could go home and get dressed for the big night. We left a little late b/c we were waiting on 3 people, but they never showed up. Everyone thought I had done this trip before b/c I sounded so confident, but little did they know that was my first time in that area of downtown Catania. I had an older couple on the trip who is a retired General. I was told, that they were my VIP guests to worry about all night. All the people were really cool and I was definitely the youngest person by about 20-25 years. Hey, just like my bus tour with Grandma when I was the youngest by about 50 years. Once we got near the Theatro Massimo Bellini Opera House, we realized that there were 2 protesters who had climbed to the roof of the building and were claiming that there were gonna jump off. It made it a hassle because the police, fire department, and the ambulance were there with a huge ladder and a jump mat. The show began around 5:30 and the inside of the theatre was absolutely breath taking. It had 5 tiered levels of Gallery seats and a giant floor seating area. It was all lined in red velvet and each booth and seating area in the upper levels had small antique light fixtures. There was a giant murial on the ceiling and acoustics surrounding the ceiling. You can actually look up the theater, and it's one of the most famous opera houses in Europe. The outside of the building was pretty too, dark beige walls with statues surrouding the entire building. The inside was much better though. Oh yeah, I've got to tell you, fur coats are EVERYWHERE here, especially during fancy events like this. I'd say almost half of the Italian women had on huge fur coats. It was so disguisting. So for the opera, it was called I cavalieri di Ekebu and of course was completely in Italian. I didn't really catch onto the story, but once it was over all my other people told me that they couldn't follow it either. It was 3 hours of some powerful vocal cords though and about 70 performers. It was alright, but I probably won't be going again. At least I can say Ive been to an Italian Opera. We got back to base around 9pm and I went home and went to bed. I have IN-DOC (Indoctrination) to the base and Sicily for the next 3 days. Oh Yeh!!