Good morning! I have not abandoned this blog. I just got back yesterday from 10 days in France with my church choir. We did four concerts in four cities, and I took my old laptop, which was fine for doing bits of work, but I couldn’t log onto any of the hotel wifi systems until we got to Paris. So, no blog posts.
I’ll write more about the trip later, but we had a good time! Highlights:
- My 18-year-old was my roommate. He was probably a bit tired of singing by the end, but he was a good sport about being on a tour with a mostly older crew. He enjoyed French nightlife with some of the younger folks too.
- Old cities. There is something just so otherworldly about the narrow streets and old buildings. Particularly in Aix-en-Provence (our first stop — see photo) I just kept taking pictures. Then these alleys will open into beautiful squares with lots of restaurants and bars.
- Eating on the street. We were there during a heat wave (I know the US is experiencing one now too) but the French eat very late, so by 9 p.m. it would be breezy and nice and we could sit outside. Sitting at a little table people watching is just so fun, and one thing we don’t do so much here!
- Espresso. All the hotels had little machines where you could make your own at breakfast. I’d go for a double espresso, and it was nice to get my coffee but not have so much liquid (a good thing, especially with long bus rides…).
- Great acoustics. We sang in old churches where voices just ring for seconds after you stop singing. Particularly for the last two concerts when we sang in a mixed formation, this was amazing to listen to.
- French food! I love that a random loaf of grocery store bread is just so good. Cheap wine is good. I ate a lot of duck. Like I had the most amazing duck in this small town where we had just stopped for lunch on our bus.
- The Maria de Medici room at the Louvre. In Paris, my son and I did the big things you do (Versailles, the Louvre) and we stopped by our favorite room, which is the Rubens paintings of Maria de Medici’s life. It’s such a juxtaposition of normal scenes (like the queen getting off a boat) which he jazzed up with fleshy pictures of gods and goddesses and random symbolic animals and the like.
- A little balcony on our room in Paris. So fun!
Anyway, I put some photos on Instagram (@lvanderkam) and more to come on the experience later. I am tired — long flight yesterday and then we sat on the runway for 45 minute after arriving as our gate was occupied. No fun after a 7.5 hour flight. I’ve had so many long flights lately and I’m kind of relieved to not have any more on the horizon for a while! (Even if they are necessary to get to amazing places like France…).