I wake at 10am, bleary-eyed after a much-needed night's sleep. Yesterday's journey had exhausted me.I'd had trouble staying awake at the opera last night. I went for several reasons, firstly to get a look at the fabulous interior of the National Opera House, all plaster and gilt, and secondly as there was little else to do in the city this evening. I wasn't in a fit state to go shaking my booty at the city nightclubs!
I took my 12Lat seat in the stalls amongst the great and the good of the city, who seemed to have come out in force. The place was packed to the rafters. I then sat through four acts of Pucini's La Boheme, which I can precis as follows:
Act I - an artist's garret in Rome. Four impecunious students struggle to pay the rent. Rudolfo, the writer amongst them, falls in love with Mimi, the girl downstairs, who strays into his lair looking for a light for her candle. She has a bit of a cough.
Act II - a cafe in the Latin Quarter. Rudolfo treats Mimi to a night on the town. Mimi still hasn't taken anything for that cough!
Act III - a square at night. Snow is falling. It transpires Mimi has left Rudolfo because he is always jealous of the way she looks at other fellas. Mimi comes back. Her cough has got worse.
Act IV - back in the garret. Mimi's cough finally takes its toll and she expires in her lover's arms.
No wonder the suicide rate is up!
This morning, I breakfast at a wee cafe.....one of a chain which seem to have sprung up like a rash across the city. But the coffee is good, and the sausage and scrambled eggs are cheap. The waitress places two large salt-cellers on the table, and what I initially assume to be the salt looks more like pepper. I swap them over, but the second one also looks like pepper. I conclude it must be paprika. It's only as I take my first mouthful that I realise I've peppered my eggs with cocoa and cinnamon meant for my cappucino!
For the next two nights I am sharing a room with a chum from Shrewsbury, who is coming over with my sister and her fella this evening. I drag my wheeled suitcase across the cobbled streets of the Old City, intending to put my baggage in storage, but the staff inform me that my room is ready.
The hotel is palatial compared to last night's accommodation, and I am delighted to find an ensuite bathroom, in custard-powder yellow! I haven't got a bath at home....indeed I haven't had a bath since Christmas, so I spend the next hour or so soaking in blissful contentment.
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