The girls awoke to two wrapped but unmarked gifts on the dining room table, accompanied by a note from Edgar Easter Bunny about how to determine whose was whose. They had to find all the eggs hidden outside (36 plastic refillables + 6 hard-boiled), take out the ten equations and solve them, then apply a number to letter code to decipher the messages about the gifts. They applied themselves and took no short cut. I was impressed that they sat at the table quietly doing math problems for nearly thirty minutes on Easter morning!
They deciphered the coded messages and each opened their gifts. Maëva got three volumes in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. Laureva received six volumes of Warrior Cats, spanning the first three arcs and filling in the gaps to the second-hand books we purchased in Oklahoma this summer.
The Monday following Easter is a holiday here. I worked in the morning. Then the girls, Marie-Elisabeth and I went to Aix for lunch and a concert in which Laureva's violin teacher was performing. Régine met us in Aix. Our lunch plans were foiled by the Corner Bistro being newly closed on Mondays. We found a crêpe place called L'Atelier at the Rotonde. The menus were taped inside Astérix comic books. Laureva was happy to see a burger on the specials menu. The rest of us had crêpes. Mine was called the Houat. It had burrata, tomatoes, pesto and roquette ice cream. It was very good. It's definitely a place I would return to. Afterwards, we made a quick stop at the Riederer salon de thé for dessert. Laureva had a fraisier and Maëva a tarte au citron. Laureva gobbled her down, but Maëva only ate half so I got to taste the lemon tart. It was very good. The cream was thick and rich and the pastry was very nutty. I had coffee and everyone else had tea. Soon it was time to head to the Cathédral Saint Sauveur for the 4pm concert. An organist, a choir with about thirty singers, two violinists, an alto player and a cellist performed two Bach cantatas: 150 and 4. The music was lovely and the concert was just about the perfect length at an hour and fifteen minutes. I'm not very knowledgeable about classical music. I learned from the conductor that the cantatas are numbered in the order they were produced (I suppose that seems logical). Bach was only 22 when he wrote #4, and #150 is from towards the end of his career. On our way out, we stopped to congratulate Laureva's teacher, Myriam:
2 comments:
I probably should know, but who is Régine?
She's a lady I've known for a long time. We met when she was in one of my classes at the French-American Association. She was a guest at our wedding.
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