Yesterday was summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and let me tell you, we made the most of that long day! It began as you see above--baths for both kids in what is standing in as a bathtub, since the actual bathtub can't hold water. You can tell from the look on Finn's face here that the kids think bathing in a laundry tub is loads of fun. (One of the blessings of the young child's disposition is that almost anything out of the ordinary seems like a wonderful treat. Parents can get away with a lot by relying on that.)
For breakfast we had this: fresh cherries and baguette topped with fromage blanc and cherry preserves. Delicious!
It's been warm and bright here everyday, and the temperatures are slowly rising as we near the end of June. The working shutters every apartment (including ours) have are handy in keeping one's living space as cool as possible. We've also been enjoying how shadowed and dark the shutters keep our place at night and into the early morning (a dark apartment meaning the kids are tricked into sleeping a tiny bit longer than they might if the sun came beaming through the window).
We then made our big walk to the grocery store. On the way we spotted this oddity--a family moving into one of the apartments on the upper floor of an old building. The moving truck, we noticed, has an extendable conveyor belt, which is used to truck things up the outside of the building and into the apartment through the window. We assume this system was developed because the corridors and doorways of these old apartment buildings are so narrow. Clever, no?
Here I am in one of the three cheese aisles at the grocery store, contemplating which shredded mozzarella to choose for our French bread pizza. Choices, choices.
The big treat of the day was the Fete de la Musique, which is an annual celebration in Hyeres to celebrate the start of summer. We walked downtown at 9 p.m. last night (yes, we let the kids stay up for this) to take part in the festivities, and, boy were they festive! The whole town turned out for the music festival, and there were bands playing on multiples "stages" in each of the town's squares. All of the restaurants and cafes were bustling, and the shops in the old ville were open. The crowds were thick in some spots--so thick that maneuvering the stroller down the streets was a challenge. (At one particularly crowded spot, a young man saw that I was having trouble and said something like "Follow me," then walked right in front of Vivi's feet clearing a space for us in which to pass through the throng of other people. I was stunned by a twenty-something guy being this attentive and helpful to a woman with a baby, but his attitude of hospitality is not at all uncommon here in Hyeres.)
Finn got the photo below from his vantage on top of Nathan's shoulders. Not bad, eh?
Here's a view of one of the central squares in the old part of the village, full of summer revelers.
Even those who didn't come out to join the party on the street leaned from their windows to take in the show below.
As well as the musicians, there were street vendors selling candy and trinkets and, here, Barbe de Papa -- cotton candy. Finn had his first cotton candy, and ended up with his own sticky beard.
Here Finn is telling Ross and one of our students about how the lights of the festival are "just like Superboy's power signs." :)
The main stage had a couple of pretty rocking acts--the last of which (the headliner) was a band called Mme. Olsen. (A Norse-French musical hybrid? I don't know. But the music sounded something like traditional Bavarian folk music-meets-French pop.)
We got home late, smelling of smoke and exhausted, but very happy to have rung in summer in such a festive way.
No comments:
Post a Comment