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A wonderful evening in The City with Carolyn and Nana. Around Noon on Friday, we decided to take Nana to the Nutcracker, and we found great seats online in the Dress Circle for the evening performance! Nana took BART, and we took Hi Ho Silver (longer story, but one of our cars) to The City. As Nana wrote:

Like 'Clara,' Dreams of The Nutcracker. . . . . .filled my sleep last night. What a wonderful memory last evening will always be--the music, ballet, lights all over San Francisco, the hotels, Union Square Tree, sitting w/my family and our wee ballerina at the Opera House presentation of Nutcracker.

The Lobby showcased a beautiful gingerbread house and chocolate nutcracker. Next, we rented a pair of opera glasses and walked upstairs to explore and find our seats. While we waited for the house to open, we celebrated with champagne and Carolyn danced for the ushers -- who were clearly taken with her. Our seats were perfect and we met one of the master ushers whose grandfather had met Enrico Caruso and built an opera house in the Azores -- and yes, he started to teach Nana a bit of Portugese! Carolyn was mesmerized by the delightful performance. She would look up at me at times and whisper, "This is beautiful!" Mama and I both had tears in our eyes as the curtain fell for Intermission. Carolyn loves the ballet. At Intermission, Carolyn, Mama and I flew down the stairs (which Carolyn also loved -- the War Memorial Opera House is stunning) to peek into the orchestra pit! Carolyn saw resting string basses and, of course, two harps! On our way down was the gift area, and there were ballerinas and nutcrackers of many colors, shapes and sizes (yes, we visited again after the performance). After the final curtain fell, we decided to visit Nob Hill and visit the lobbies of the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels, and -- Cables Cars! More gingerbread and sugar villages, then it was time to visit Union Square and yet more huge Christmas trees (inside and outside). The St. Francis Hotel was a treat since the Cable Cars pass directly in front of the entrance and Carolyn saw and was entranced by several. Inside we enjoyed another gingerbread village with chocolate trees (had to keep Mama from reaching in to grab the broken tree). There was a train too, but it was resting, much to the chagrin of Carolyn. The history of the St. Francis Hotel is fascinating, and I saw the famous clock! For the history lovers, this is a gem:

When the 1906 Earthquake struck at just after five in the morning, the structure of The St. Francis initially remained sound. Chef Victor Hirtzler and his staff swept out the kitchen and served breakfast in the café to tenor Enrico Caruso and other members of the Metropolitan Opera Company, who had wandered from another hotel to the safety of Union Square in their sleepwear. Young actor John Barrymore behaved in his customary manner after a night out on the town: he went upstairs to his room and went back to sleep until the final alarm sounded.

And, as we learned earlier at the Nutcracker from our master usher, Caruso said he would never return to San Francisco after the quake, and he never did. All in all, a night none of us will ever forget.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 17th, 2005 at 6:21 PM and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.