Ampowerflower: 03/07/11

The Civic Opera House.

Hace exactamente dos semanas fuimos a la opera. Hacia tiempo que habiamos hablado sobre ello y desde que hicimos el tour por el rio Chicago y vimos el grandioso edificio, supe que queria ir al menos una vez a ver una opera. La verdad es que fue mi regalo de Navidad para Thomas, pero con entrada incluida para mi.
Las entradas estaban agotadas para varias de las operas que habia, unas dos obras distintas por mes. Mi idea era ir a ver "Carmen" en Abril, pero las entradas estaban agotadisimas y lo unico que pude encontrar disponible, con una buena entrada (el precio esta por las nubes) fue para febrero "Lohengrin" de Wagner.
Aqui os dejo el link para que veais la historia, el elenco de personajes, etc.
Two weeks ago we went to the opera. We had talked about it many times and since we did the tour along the Chicago river and I saw the building of the Civic Opera House, I knew I wanted to go there at least once. The truth is that it was my Christmas present for Thomas with an extra ticket for me :)
It is not easy to get tickets since they are sold out many months in advance. There are around two plays per month and my idea was going to "Carmen" in April, but the tickets were sold out of course. I looked for something available with good seats (it is pretty expensive) and I found it for February. It was "Lohengrin" by Wagner.
Here I show you the link for the play, the cast, story, characters, etc.

http://www.lyricopera.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=9818

Nuestros asientos estaban en el primer balcon y se veia el escenario estupendamente. El sonido era muy bueno y sinceramente creo que eran mejores asientos que en la planta baja en la parte trasera.
Our seats were on the first balcony and our view was great. The sound was also excellent and to be honest, I believe we had better seats than the ones downstairs at the back, even though they were more expensive.

La historia me gusto, al igual que los personajes y la musica. He de decir que la orquesta era de primera :). La opera duro cuatro horas y media, con dos descansos de media hora incluidos.
Habia gente joven, pero dominaba la tercera edad, jeje!! Tambien habia algunas personas estiradas que parecian adineradas y que miraban por encima del hombro en plan "que hacen estos aqui?", pero bueno, yo iba a lo mio. Tambien habia mucha gente que creia que vestia de modo muy estiloso, pero yo les daba una buena leccion de como vestir. Esta parte fue bastante entretenida y de hecho, estoy pensando muy seriamente el dedicar un texto a los modelos que vi aquella noche...
I liked the story, the characters and the music. The orchestra was outstanding and it took four hours, including two breaks of half an hour.
There were young people, but the "golden generation" people were the majority, haha! There were also kind of rich people who looked at us with a face of "what the hell are they doing here?" but I didn't pay any attention. There were also people who believed they were stylish, but I'd like to teach them something about what to wear. This was something pretty entertaining and I'm seriously thinking of writing a post about all the dresses and awful clothes I saw that day...
Lo mas importante fue la obra, las voces, la musica tan poderosa estilo Wagneriano, nada melodico, pero si muy potente y naturalmente, la puesta en escena, con mas de 100 personas sobre el escenario mas la grandisima orquesta. Bastante impresionante.
Mis personajes favoritos fueron "los malos", en este caso Ortrud y Telramund. Ademas, la obra se desarrollaba en Brabant, si señor, de donde viene Thomasito y estaba escrita en aleman, por lo que pudimos entender la mayoria de la letra (aunque habia una pantalla con subtitulos).
The most important things were the play itself, the voices, the powerful music, pure Wagnerian style, not melodic but very strong and of course, the acting with more than 100 people on the stage together with the big orchestra. Pretty impressive.
My favorite characters were the "bad guys", Ortrud and Telramund. Moreover, the play takes place in Brabant, yes!! where Thomas comes from and it was written in German, so we could understand the lyrics easily, even though there were English subtitles.
Para concluir, decir que la experiencia fue positiva, lo pasamos bien, fue cultural, interesante y unico. Esto ultimo porque no creo que pueda comprar entradas muy a menudo, jeje! Al menos, merecio la pena :)

In conclusion I have to say that it was again a positive experience, we had a lot of fun, it was very cultural an unique experience. I say unique because I don't think I can buy tickets very often, haha! At least, it worth it!! :)

The purple pig. El cerdo morado :)

Hola a todos!! El titulo de este texto no es un insulto, es solo el nombre de un restaurante de Chicago, "The purple pig". Era un sitio del que nos habian hablado y por supuesto, queriamos probarlo :)
Hi all!! The title of this post is not an insult, it is only the name of a restaurant in Chicago "The purple pig". Some friends recommended it to us and of course, we wanted to try it :)
Al salir de la opera llovia a mares, para un dia que salimos y no para de llover, ufff!! queriamos elegir un sitio para cenar cerca de la opera y pensamos en ir a este sitio que en teoria podiamos ir en metro. Lo unico fue que la parada de metro no estaba tan cerca como pensabamos, sino que tuvimos que andar casi 20 minutos hasta encontrarla...en ese momento, nuestros pies ya estaban hechos una sopa y mi mal humor iba en aumento. Una vez en la parada del metro, vimos que solo teniamos que andar un poco mas hasta llegar al restaurante, con lo que continuamos con nuestro paraguas diminuto y chorreando. Nos bajamos al nivel de abajo para intentar acortar la distancia y terminamos en uno de los tuneles mas tetricos de Chicago. No os lo recomiendo...por fin salimos al nivel uno de la ciudad, menos mal! continuamos un poco mas y llegamos al restaurante. En ese momento, pense que la comida tenia que merecer la pena despues del paseo humedo y tetrico que dimos.
It was raining like hell when we went out of the opera building. The only day we went out and it was raining, ufff!! We wanted to go somewhere close to the opera and we thought of going to this place by metro. The only thing was that the metro stop was not as close as we thought. We actually had to walk more than 15 minutes under the heavy rain with our feet completely soaked. My bad mood was raising every minute :). When we arrived to the metro stop we saw we only had to walk a bit more to go to the restaurant, so we continued walking under our tiny umbrella (ella, ella...). We went one level down trying to shorten our way to the restaurant and we ended up in a very sketchy tunnel in Chicago. I don't recommend it to anyone. After some minutes walking there we went up again, thank God! in five minutes we were finally at the restaurant and I though "I hope the food is super excellent after this walk under the rain or else I'll jump out of the window".
El restaurante estaba "petao", tuvimos que esperar un poco tomandonos un vinito, que rico! nos llamaron para sentarnos en nuestra mesa y fue entonces cuando descubri la maravillosa carta de este restaurante. No es un restaurante español ni nada por el estilo, pero ofrecen varias cosas españolas y cuando digo españolas, me refiero a comida de verdad, no a lo que se sirve en un restaurante de los llamados "españoles" donde hay toritos alrededor, toreros y cosas asi...
The restaurant was completely crowded and we had to wait a bit drinking a nice wine, yuhu!! they called us pretty soon and it was then when I discovered the wonderful menu cart they have. It is not a Spanish restaurant or nothing like this, but they server many real Spanish things there and when I say Spanish I mean real food, not like the one served in the so-called "Spanish restaurants" with bulls around and bullfighters...
El menu se componia de platos pequeños para compartir y todo tenia una pinta buenisima, tenian jamon serrano, morcilla, queso manchego y de otras muchas clases, etc, etc.
Aqui os dejo algunas fotos de las cosa que pedimos, acompañadas de un buen vino de Valdepeñas porque yo lo valgo! Despues de comer me di cuenta que no habia echado muchas fotos porque habiamos empezado a comer muy pronto, asi que en algunas fotos la comida esta ya a medias, jeje! pero que quereis? estaba todo buenisimo!!
The menu consisted on small dishes to share and everything looked great. They had serrano ham, morcilla, manchego cheese, etc. Here you can see some pictures of our dinner, which we ate together with a lovely wine from Valdepeñas because I worth it! After dinner I realized I didn't take enough nice pictures because I started eating instead of taking a pic, but everything was delicious so...

Tostada de jamon serrano con setas y huevo frito encima. Serrano ham toast with mushrooms and fried egg on top.

Morcilla con manzana. Morcilla with apple.

Thomasito comiendo sepia. Thomasito eating sepia.

Menu cart. Everything was delicious. Menu, todo rico, rico.

Mejillones servidos en un cerdito :) Mussels served on a porky plate :)

Birthday party. Fiesta de cumpleaños

Hola!! ya se que es un poco tarde para escribir sobre mi cumpleaños, pero es que hay temporadas que no me da tiempo a hacer otra cosa que no sea trabajar, trabajar y trabajar :) que es algo bueno y por supuesto, no me quejo!
Puesto que estamos aqui en USA y no tuve oportunidad de ver a mi familia y amigos españoles y holandeses, etc, queria celebrar mi cumple con toda la gente chuli que he conocido aqui. Todos ellos mis compis de laboratorio y del grupo de Thomas.
La fiesta se celebro en nuestro salon, ya que la sala de fiestas de nuestro edificio ya estaba reservada :(. Creiamos que no ibamos a caber todos aqui, pero al final quitando un par de mesas fuera de la circulacion y convirtiendo nuestra cocina en una especie de bar improvisado, lo pasamos genial! Casi todos mis compañeros vinieron y mucha gente del laboratorio de Thomas. La noche fue bastante especial y me gustaria agradecerles a todos su asistencia en nuestro humilde hogar :)
Compre algunas bebidas y cosas de picoteo, pero todos nuestros amigos trajeron mas bebidas, cosas de comer e incluso una tarta!!
Desde aqui quiero agradecerles a todos que viniesen despues de tener una reunion de grupo de mas de 4 horas el mismo sabado por la mañana y algunos de ellos, un reunion de grupo a casi las 6 de la tarde de un sabado. Algunos incluso, hicieron un doble viaje Chicago-Evanston. Despues de la semana y trabajando los sabados, esto se hace un poco pesado, asi que GRACIAS!
Por supuesto, agradecer a mis amigos de todas las partes del mundo por sus felicitaciones, tarjetas e incluso, una caja de dulces japoneses de mi amiga Yuko.
Aqui os dejo algunas fotos del evento, sencillo y divertido, no nos desmadramos, jeje! que ya tenemos una edad ;) me encanto mi fiesta!!
Hi!! I know it is a bit too late to talk about my bday but there are weeks when the only thing I do is work, work and work. Of course, this is something good and I don't complain at all, but I also want to write on my blog :)
Since we are here in the US and I didn't have the chance of spending my bday with my family and European friends, I wanted to celebrate that day with all the wonderful people I've met here. Most of them my lab mates and people from Thomas' group.
The party was celebrated in our living room because the party room of our building was already booked :( We thought we wouldn't fit in here, but just moving the tables we had room enough for all of us. Almost all my colleagues came to the party and a lot of people from Thomas' lab. I had a lot of fun! It was very special for me and I'm very happy everyone came to our house!
I bought some drinks and snacks, but almost everyone brought more drinks, things to eat and even a bday cake!! I loved it!
I would like to thank everyone who came to the party after having a more than four hour long group meeting in the morning and other people another group meeting at 6 pm on Saturday evening. Some people even made a double trip Chicago-Evanston and this can be heavy after the working week which includes Saturday. THANKS!!
Of course, I'd like to thank also all my friends from all over the world for calling, writing, messaging and sending cards, presents, etc. Thanks!! I even got a box of Japanese sweets from my friend Yuko.
Here you can see some pics from the party. It was simple and nice, not really a super crazy party (I'm already old, hehe) but I really loved it!

Empezando la celebracion cenando en Bistro Bordeaux. Starting the celebration in Bistro Bordeaux.

With David, from Thomas' lab. Con David, del lab de Thomas

Eduard, Christina and Ronit. Eduard even brought a Spanish omelet. Eduard, Cristina y Ronit. Eduard trajo una tortilla de patatas, bien! Ellos hicieron el viaje doble Chicago-Evanston.