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March 13, 2011 - Standing Room Only for La Boheme

3/13/2011

Milan is the home of the world’s most famous opera house, La Scala. At dinner time we fought the crowds to get tickets because “La Boheme” is on the program. Naturally they were sold out except for the 3000 lira($5), standing only room tickets. We got there two hours early and just managed to get in. It meant standing about six hours but it was worth it!

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A daily diary of a journey in 1962. Please post comments about where you were then on the Background page.

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1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

It was a year colored by the Cuban Missile Crisis, an escalating involvement in Vietnam, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War with Russia, Civil Rights issues, a nascent space program, Nelson Mandela in prison, Betty Friedan's, The Feminist Mystique, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the death of Marilyn Monroe.

In the face of all of this, Pat, Judy and I blithely took off for Europe with the intention of traveling through Europe and North Africa until our money ran out. We had a travel guide and a book titled Europe on $5.00 a Day. Since we had all read The Ugly American in preparation for the trip, we thought we were very smart to buy a used Volkswagen with Dutch license plates. We dubbed the car "Louie" since a cute guy from Switzerland named Louie had helped us acquire it.

There was no such thing as a cell phone, a computer, Twitter or Facebook. Our parents didn't hear from us for weeks on end. We wrote regularly, but letters took forever to deliver and we only vaguely knew where we would be next. It was a very cold winter and we followed the sun.

March 13, 2011 - Standing Room Only for La Boheme

1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

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