Category: Opera

Dec. 22, 1962 Vienna

12/22/2010

In the morning we went directly to the Spanische Reitschule (Spanish riding school) Didn’t get to see them go through the real fancy stuff, but saw them doing the basic stuff. Beautiful animals. Then went to the Kunstlerhaus Museum and Maria Theresien Platz. We decided to go to Vienna's Statsoper. We had to get in line at 4:30 to get standing room only for the 7pm performance. We saw La Traviata by Verdi . What a surprise! It was marvelous .
Food: 4.50, 7, 10, 7, 8 shillings, Spanish Riding School: 2 shillings, Opera tickets – La Traviata: 7 shillings, Room: 16

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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.

Dec. 22, 1962 Vienna

1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

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