July Memories

Bastille Day Fireworks in the Cannes Harbor with Priscilla – There was real artistry in the fireworks display, set to music in the harbor. These “Italian” fireworks were the first in a summer-long contest sponsored by the city of Cannes featuring shows presented by six different nations for the prize as the best fireworks.

A Guided Tour of the Hennessy Distillery in Cognac, courtesy of Pascal Lamaud – although we were taken through buildings specially constructed to show the process of making cognac, it was well done, and our English-speaking guide was clear in his presentation. We saw some casks that contained eau de vie (many eau de vies are used to create a blended cognac) from the late 1800’s – which will be eventually used in some cognac. Now that’s pretty cool. We ended the tour with a tasting of a very lovely cognac – now if I could only remember which one…

Sipping Bordeaux wine on the banks for the Garonne in Bordeaux – Nathalie and her mom were our hostesses for our two days in Bordeaux. We never made it to a winery (actually, they are called chateaux in this region), but Kenny made sure to buy a good bottle of red and white, which we all shared in the setting sun on the Promenade along the river, with the city skyline rolling out beyond us on the river.

Watching the Tour de France roll through Nice on the Promenade des Anglais – While Kenny and I had visited Monaco briefly the day before to see the preparations for the “Départ” of the Tour de France on July 4^th, it wasn’t until the next day that we actually saw the riders. Chris, Kenny, Nathan and I headed down to the Promenade des Anglais, right near the Hotel Negresco, and joined the other Niçois and tourists along the metal barriers about thirty minutes before the peloton was scheduled to ride along the sea in front of us. There was a festive feeling in the air, and Tour vans travelled up and down the road as pretty young women decked out in Tour yellow hawked souvenir bags filled with Tour paraphernalia, all also in bright yellow. We watched the helicopters as they swooped over the Corniche toward Nice, heralding the oncoming riders. And suddenly cars were speeding past us, the helicopters were overhead and we watched the first five riders zip by in a blur. We were ready when, about two minutes later, the rest of the 120 riders came by in a pack, followed by platoons of automobiles – press cars, team cars, team cars with bikes – it was pretty amazing. And then it was all over. But we saw the Tour!

Riding the TGV – I’ve taken the train for long trips several times during my stay here: to Paris, to Aix-en-Provence, and to Tuscany. (I’ve also taken the regional train here on the Cote d’Azur, of which I am not talking about here.) I rode with Chris, Kenny and Nathan from Nice to Bordeaux last week on the TGV – an 8 hour trip (which happily involved no transfers or layovers). Like my other trips on the TGV, it was a very pleasant ride. I commend the French on this particular mode of transportation. Chris had gotten seat reservations for the three of them, which turned out to be two seats facing two seats, with a table in between. I sat with them in the fourth chair, and the young man who appeared and had that seat reserved very nicely agreed to take my reserved window seat further down the aisle. The train was on time, quiet (no one talked on their cell phones in the train car, as instructed by the many signs inside the car), and had plenty of room for luggage (racks between seats and overhead). The bathrooms were equipped and remained pretty clean the entire ride. And the scenery along the way was almost always worthy of looking out the window – as we sped through Provence, we saw the Cezanne mountains (so-called, because those are the ones he painted), the vineyards, the Esterel mountains (that hug the shoreline). As we passed Marseille and headed toward Toulouse, we saw more countryside and vineyards, and finally field after field of sunflowers. A ride to remember.

Watching the Wimbledon Men’s Singles Final 2009 – I’ve been in Europe the first week in July many times over the past 10 years, and not infrequently made watching Wimbledon a planned part of those European visits, simply because the matches are being played when you can watch them real time (as opposed to watching them in the States with the five hour difference). This year my cousin Matt was at Wimbledon, watching games on Centre Court and on the grounds, in the three days before he came to visit me in Nice, and see the Tour de France (which was starting on July 4^th in Monaco). When Matt and his friend Andy arrived, their agenda, other than sitting on the beach, was to watch Wimbledon’s final matches. So on July 3^rd, I walked the two of them down to the old city in Nice, to a British pub that I had seen just off the square with the Palais de Justice. And indeed, the men’s semi-final matches were being shown on wide screen TVs all afternoon. So Matt and Andy set themselves down to drink Guiness and lager and watch Federer and then Roddick, play (and win) their matches. The final between Federer and Roddick began at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. By that time, my sister and her family had arrived in Nice. Matt and Andy were still in town, and planned to go back to the pub to watch the match. But I had made arrangements for my family to meet one of my church families, as the husband, like my sister, was a professional violinist; he plays with the Nice Philharmonic.

After watching the Tour de France riders pass through town, we took the tram up to the Roederer’s neighborhood near the University Valrose, and had a lovely afternoon sipping rose and drinking coffee in their backyard. Afterwards, Suzanne drove us to the Chagall Museum in the Cimiez neighborhood, as the museum, which usually has an admission fee, was free that afternoon, and it was worth a visit. So we got back to the apartment around 4:30 or 5. We were having my friend Priscilla over for dinner, as well as Matt and Andy, and so my nephew Nathan and I started preparing ratatouille for the meal. But at some point, we turned on the TV, and Nathan asked if we could watch the tennis final. Canal was broadcasting the final, but I didn’t get it on my television, except for the blurry, horizontally-challenged picture that you get when you aren’t supposed to be getting that channel. So we pulled up the “real time” scores on the Wimbledon internet site, to watch what we realized was at that point a very competitive match.

And then about 30 minutes later, after shouting out updates to the family from the computer and sort of seeing what was going on on the TV screen, Nathan found a link on the website to a radio broadcasting the game from Britain. So, he clicked on the link, and suddenly we were “listening to the game” – getting a play-by-play real time – my first time following a tennis game on the radio! And then, around 6:30 p.m., suddenly the TV went from blurry to clear, and we were watching the game in pictures too. The match was heading towards its epic fifth set, and our interest in watching at that point was very keen. We were cheering for the American, Roddick, but the players were well matched, and it was pretty clear that the one of them would have to lose concentration first for someone to win. We kept the volume off the TV set, and kept listening to the British radio broadcast, as the television broadcast was in French. And we kept watching, until the bitter end – Roddick was the one to break, and it was Federer’s 15^th championship to celebrate. This Wimbledon I will not forget for a very long time.

L’Église Réformée de Nice – The Anglican church on Boulevard Victor Hugo, housing the French Protestant congregation in the center city of Nice, has been the center of my community here over the past 10 months. I found the church last September, and was invited to join a choir there in October, and sang in services there at Christmastime, Palm Sunday and Pentecost Sunday. My best French friends in Nice are the people I met in that congregation. And so it was lovely to have my favorite pastor there (there are three), Lionel Tambon, call me up to the lecturn two Sundays ago, to thank me for my contributions to the musical life of the church, and wish me well on my journey back to the States. I was touched that he invited me to say a few words too, and, in French, I thanked the congregation and let them know they were my “petite famille” in France, and how much I had enjoyed getting to know them during my stay here. Tu me manqueras! (I will miss you!)