We haven't gone anywhere in two years, mostly due to COVID. We had planned on a trip to the Salzburg festival last summer, only to cancel when the pandemic broke out in March. We were given vouchers good through December 2021 in lieu of the canceled airline tickets and got our money back for the shows. So, we finally decided to cash in those vouchers and travel to Milan next week. The trip is still not without anxiety, as there are so many rules and regulations for airline travel and entry to countries, but we seem to have our papers in order. Won't know until we actually board the plane.
Lithuania is discouraging travel to most European countries, including Italy, with the spike in cases throughout the EU, but then Lithuania itself is no better, reporting 2000 new cases per day. I checked Italy. While it is reporting 12,000 cases per day, its per capita rate is much lower than Lithuania. So, we are probably safer there than here.
Milan has long been on our wish list - the combination of opera and fashion greatly appeals to us. Daina bought tickets to Placido Domingo at La Scala. We had seen him in Kaunas with Violeta Urmana three years ago, but it was in a basketball arena so not the same thing. Violeta got her start with Placido in Parsifal. As the story goes, he picked her himself for the role of Kundry.
It's not like we are big opera buffs, but we enjoy a good show. Last summer we watched Faust in the Vilnius University courtyard, produced by Dalia Ibelhauptaitė. It was great fun, as she essentially made it into a burlesque show. There are quite a few young Lithuanian stars now, like Edgaras Montvidas, who sang the title role. He's well known throughout Europe and only rarely returns to Vilnius. Rain came between the two acts, but we got through it without cold or COVID the next week. The orchestra and chorus were set up under separate tents, but they weren't quite so lucky, as COVID broke out among the chorus and they couldn't appear for her production of Queen of Spades a couple weeks later.
Hard to believe that last summer we were willing to take such risks, as there were no vaccines and this particular strain of coronavirus was quite dangerous, but we had been told that outdoor events were OK, and the daily cases had fallen to a handful. I guess it all depended on how close you were stacked together.
For the most part, we traveled around the country last summer, getting together with two of our closest friends for a three-day road trip to the lowlands. Not that there is that much difference in altitude from one part of Lithuania to another, but Žemaitija considers itself a separate country. It was sold off to the Teutonic and Livonian orders during the Grand Duchy era, and developed its own dialect and culture in the process. Žemaičiai never forgave the grand dukes for the betrayal. Beautiful country, especially in the Telšiai region.
We consider ourselves lucky that we haven't gotten the virus, as our son, my wife's brother and several of our colleagues all came down with COVID. Some cases were quite severe, like that of her brother, who said he felt like he was going to die as he couldn't get enough air. He pulled through it, as did our son and colleagues. None of them hesitated to get the vaccine when it came available this past spring, as they didn't want to go through it again.
Daina and I were debating whether to get the booster shot before or after Milan, as we weren't sure how we would react to it. Daina was hit hard for two days, but I just had a bit of a headache the next day. We were able to avoid the lines, as now persons are queuing up for the shots with the latest surge in cases. However, there is some anxiety that 12 days may be too soon to travel, according to the Lithuanian travel advisory, but no such warning in the Italian travel advisory.
The situation was quite dire in Milan last November. Over 8000 daily cases were being reported in the city alone, but they managed to get the virus under control. However, the current spike of 1700 cases per day represents a substantial uptick from this past summer, and I read that Bryan Adams recently got COVID in Milan. So we need to be careful.
It's hard to gauge how well the vaccines work when confronted with the virus. We have been pretty careful for the most part, keeping our distance, always wearing masks in public places. We got a bit of a scare when we went to a concert last month, as it was tightly packed in the conference hall of a hotel, but we got through that OK as well. Everyone was wearing masks and had to have a green pass to enter, so I guess no one was spreading the virus.
Our friends had bought tickets for the Moscow Danilo Monastery Choir the year before, but the concert had been postponed due to COVID and this was our last chance to see them. They didn't disappoint, but it was an odd night. Daina said afterward that many of her illusions were shattered. Some of the songs were specifically aimed at the disputed Donetsk and Karabakh regions, suggesting some national chauvinism on their part. One of the songs was apparently a fertility song. As if to offer proof, one of the monks said he had seven children. After the show, two of them asked her and Jurate where they could buy beer. Oh well.
I will be glad when all this is over and we can travel freely again. Our oldest daughter currently lives in Australia. We had planned to go to Sidney last fall, but needless to say that was cancelled. Goda is afraid to travel out of the country for fear she won't be allowed back in. It has been three years since we last saw each other in Hungary. It's nice to be able to make video calls, but it is not the same thing.
For now it is Milan. The other anxiety is what to wear, as it looks like it will be relatively cold next week and we are trying to keep our clothes contained to two 10 kg. carry on bags. Have to have something nice for our night at the opera. Have so long dreamed of being in La Scala. We will be on the platea, row Q. Salute!
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