A weird day.
I woke up early, went back to sleep, got up at 8:30 this time. Day is rainier than yesterday and cold (yesterday, it got warmer in the afternoon). I finished Part II of “Dune” this morning and then went to have breakfast. Nothing unusual so far.
We took the car to the new National Library. It is a pretty cool building. The tours only started after 1pm – so, hopefully, we will come back at a later date. But that is definitely one thing I would love to do – and I want to see the archives room. There is a monument to Francisk Skarina in front of the library – he introduced the printing press into Belarus and is one of great people in history of literature here.
( Library Pictures )We, then, drove to a new church. It is still not finished inside but outside it is grand and pretty. (There were some churches in the Soviet Union when I was little, but not many went there, and some were converted to archives or theaters. Now there is a resurgence of religion and more churches, both Orthodox and Catholic are being built.) Right next to it is a wooden church – we went in there. Mama bought some souvenirs. While we waited for her, we watched a priest bless a car outside – with holy water, prayer and everything. That was quite amusing.
( Priest blessing Car pictures )Then we drove through the streets of Minsk. Again, I feel like I’m in a brand new city – there are some familiar things but not as many. We parked near Katya’s and went up for a brief stop. Uncle Tolya went home to go to work. Papa and I went to change some money while Mama and Aunt Vera went to the store. This is where I started to feel very weak. No palpitations, just general sense of weakness and tiredness. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was walking too much in the last few days since I was sitting on my behind too much in the past month, or my blood pressure just fell – but I was not up for much for the rest of the afternoon.
The money exchange person didn’t take one of my $20 because it was torn a tiny bit on one end.
I got some hematogen (it has iron in it but it tasted like candy) and Papa and I got some lunch in hopes of restoring some strength. That did help a little. I had draniki with meat and sour cream and a new fast food place (except they cook pretty regular food in the back) – it was very delicious. Meanwhile, Mama managed to try on and buy a fur coat. I didn’t feel up to anything and I knew I had to rest since we had to go to the opera that evening. So Papa and I went to Katya’s to rest while Mama and Aunt Vera shopped for a fur hat. I napped just a bit until Lenya came home from school with a few friends. Then I cross-stitched. I still felt weak but a bit better. Papa made me some tea with sweets. Then Mama and Aunt Vera came back (and Papa went to pay for the hat) and we left for home. When we got home I took a really long nap for at least an hour and a half. After the nap I felt much better.
I took a nice hot shower (the hot water finally kicked in) and used my new robe – very handy. I had some tea with kolbasa sandwich. I felt human again. I finally was able to talk to Bear by phone through Skype – modern technology is awesome. Then I got ready for the opera. I wore my black pants and a purple shirt.
( Opera House pictures )At the opera house, we saw Misha and Tanya and Tanya’s mother right away. They got tickets separately and it just happened that it was on the same night. Misha is just adorable and he smiles a lot. I wish we could spend more time with them. I did invite them to my birthday party, of course.
We saw Verdi’s
“Nabucco” in four acts. I’ve never seen it before and I was actually surprised by the plot – it is about Assyrian invasion of Judea and the destruction of the First Temple. Jews are portrayed in a very positive light here. Of course, the ending in the opera was a happy ending – the Babylonian King accepts Judaism! The whole destruction and exile are sort of ignored there. Still, an opera about Jews as heroes and playing in Belarus to high acclaim is very cool. We sat in the third row center. They also used projection and other state of the art new technologies in the opera – in the prologue we see tourists on stage who laugh as people praying at the Western Wall, through magic of projection we see a globe spinning and they are sent backwards in time to be the characters in the opera and learn to respect the religion and traditions, so they don’t giggle and disrespect it. (Never mind that men and women would never come near the wall together). I did like the use of technology and projection. The main woman villain, Abigail, was great – at singing and in good nuanced portrayal of the character.
We got the program before the opera started and as I was reading it, I completely did not expect the following line (in English on translated page) “And the King was struck by lightning and turned into a werewolf, surrounded by ghosts with bloody rain pouring down.” That was awesome on many levels even as in the actual opera he merely goes crazy.
My watch battery finally gave in today after five years, my uncle replaced it – he is crazy about watches and clocks. It is kind of good that it happened here.
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