By 2024, two things had happened: first, since I had long ago stopped blogging about my fun outings, I mostly stopped keeping the ticket stubs, Playbills, and other mementos that would allow me to recreate this information later. Second, I did fewer fun things; work was a disaster, S and I were going out on the town less frequently, and there is just generally less to recollect. Regardless, here we go ...
2024
SLSO - The 2023-2024 season included classical music such as Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5, Brahms' Symphony No. 2, and Verdi's Requiem and Kyrie, plus popular shows like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Rhapsody in Blue. One of my favorite shows of the season was called "Operatic Favorites," which included selections from L'Orfeo, The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, Manon Lescaut, Norma, La Gioconda, Mignon, Carmen, The Tales of Hoffman, and Orpheus in the Underworld.
Paintings by Jim Weidle - Mom came to visit in the spring of 2024, and we headed up to Fairfield, Iowa, for a show at the Icon. Mom has known Jim Weidle since college, and I have a lot of his work in my house (as does my whole family). We saw his show, spent the day with him, toured around Fairfield, and generally had a good time.
And, I found a painting that I liked so much that I bought it when the show was over. The particular one I bought is no longer on his website, but it is in the "Bike" series. It has a prominent spot in my living room and I still love it!
Wave: Ripple Effects - Also while Mom was in town, we went to the Matisse exhibit at SLAM, and it just so happened that they were hosting an art-inspired chamber music concert, which we also attended (along with P, of the Hamilton tickets).
OTSL - the summer's opera season was a great one: Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Puccini's La Boheme, Handel's Julius Caesar, and Glass's Galileo Galilei. All good shows, but Galileo was the surprise hit!
Our themed meals were for Barber and La Boheme. For the former, we had spinach and chickpeas, salmorejo, and almond cake, plus Spanish wine. For the latter, we had ratatouille, coq au vin (the all-around favorite!), and tarte tatin.
Head of the Charles - C and I took our double to HOCR in Boston in October. It was a really fun weekend - Boston in good weather is such a wonderful city! - even though our performance wasn't great. I felt pretty good, but I think our fitness just wasn't where it needed to be, and we were heavily penalized for crossing the buoy line a couple of times. Oh, well - we had a good time!
One of the non-regatta highlights was our brunch at the Boston Public Library. Did you know they have a restaurant in there? (Two, actually!) I didn't, but thankfully C did. We four (C and his wife, plus S and me) ate at the Map Room Lounge. The setting was fantastic, and the food was good too! Definitely something to repeat.
Ambassadors of Harmony - my sister-in-law and I, for our now-standard Christmas tradition, were treated by our mother-in-law to the AOH holiday show at UMSL. This year's first-half theme was "Christmas in Space," plus we had the Vocal Spectrum halftime show, and the Christmas standards in the second half. Lunch was at Maggiano's; I've been there a couple of times in the last couple of years, and each time I'm surprised by how good it is; better than your average Italian chain, for sure!
Florida - S and I took an extended work-from-Florida holiday for Thanksgiving, which gave us lots of time with K, J, and mom.
Cyprus - again finding ourselves nearing Christmas with no travel plans, S and I looked at a map, looked at flight prices, and decided to head to Cyprus for the holidays. We didn't know much about it other than that it had Greek heritage and part of the island was taken over (and remains held) by Turkey, with the UN keeping the peace between the two.
Similar to our trip to Ireland in 2024, we rented a car and took ourselves on a driving tour. We landed in Larnaca, then traveled to Pano Lefkara, Agros, Omodos, Paphos, Polis, Nicosia, Agia Napa, and back to Larnaca. The Christmas markets were great fun (especially the one in Agros, where we rode on the tractor-pulled train through town - possibly slightly intoxicated, as it was meant for children), and the Christmas Eve dinner spread at the Elysium hotel was truly astonishing!
As with Ireland, we both really loved Cyprus and this is definitely a trip worth repeating!
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