A night at the ballet!

By some wonderful coincidence and a minor communications mishap, I went to the St. Petersburg Ballet! Accompanying were Anne, Sam, Eddie, and their mothers. The menfolk had begged off on the grounds that ballet is lacking a certain “manliness.” By the end of the evening, I think Sam and Eddie were in agreement. I’m not sure what Sam said when the lights came up at the end of the second act, but abject relief has a way of translating across language barriers.

Well. I thought it was great. No idea what the story was – I can guess, but it wouldn’t be remotely accurate.

Anne and I took a subway to the general area of the amphitheater - it was at an amphitheater! - and I was unfortunately chewing on a piece of simit when Anne took the photo. So I look a bit like a chipmunk.

Anyone remember when Cow Parade was in Hometown? Bueller? Well, Istanbul's doing pretty much the same thing, but with shoes. Apparently there's some sort of international...shoe...festival? in town soon, and Shoe Parade (or whatever they're calling it) is part of the promotion. It's pretty cool.

I apologize in advance for the dubious quality of some of these photos – I was shooting sort of around the shoulders and head of the woman in front of me, with the camera zoomed waaaay in, trying not to move at all. With those parameters, it’s a wonder that any of these turned out. No, really: this was my view through most of the show:

And we’re calling the blurry ones “artistic,” yes? Good.

I'm kind of amused by how the dancers look like posed action figures here. HannahSam or someone could probably tell you why that happened...

One of the perks of being a theater person: you notice things. Like when the lighting guys left a dark patch downstage center, so that the dancers were in the dark for their bows. Oops. Most of them looked a lot like this, but without the benefit of the camera's zoom:

And I know that it doesn't look like much, but believe me when I say that it was noticeable.

It was a good night; a good time was had by all (except, perhaps, Sam and Eddie).