Mom and Dad wrapping it up in Provence

For our last few days together in Provence, Mom and Dad and I kept it low-key chill. Ok, barring my insane nervousness about having the Towers watch me teach, everything was very chill post-weekend. On Sunday night, after an extremely lazy day (um, hi, I took a NAP. I cannot remember the last time I successfully napped) we set out in the evening for a vehicle 'stroll' through the Luberon region. Right through the mountains. Beautiful, natch, and we hit on Bonnieux and Lacoste, to name a few of the villages. Dad has the photos because I got reallllly lazy with my camera at this point but I can tell you: all very pretty. We happened upon a castle (of course, there's a billion here) with a wine degustation place inside it and, as tempted as I was to say "pop open that Chateauneuf du Pape!" we left it to go mange our picnic under a tree on the side of the road. And that rocked, too.

On Monday, as you all know, I played "Take Your Parents to Work Day" and it was wondefully spledidly successful. My kids were obsessed with my parents ("ooh la la! la reine anglaise! le roi americain!") and my parents were willing and great participants in class as we reviewed the thrilling subject matter of clothing. Yannick, my directrice, spoke with them (she lived in Chicago and in Hawaii!) and was so nice and welcoming. My parents also met Francoise, a woman with whom I'm friends and so it all rocked. To top off my amazing class that they witnessed, Mom later got to see my littlest kids, the kindergarteners, sing two songs! "The Rainbow Song" and "The Weather Song" (we sure are original with our titles). It was so cute.

And in the afternoon after I was done teaching? We went to Orange, a pretty large town that's not too far from Sorgues. What's the big deal about Orange? Well, Wikipedia tells me that it was once the capital of the northern part of Provence. It has the oldest and best preserved Roman theater in all of Western Europe and it is now a World Heritage Site. Very cool. Dad and I went in and felt all Gladiator-like as Dad got pictures and we trembled at the mightiness of it all.

Tuesday was my parents' last day in Avignon. They spent the day wandering around the city while I taught. But then I got off work early! So I went and ran errands and chilled and did some other wrapping-up-type stuff here in the city. I then went to Micaela's for dinner. Chez Micaela.

And oh man, what a dinner.

This is the part where I tell you what we ate!!
Or I might just put it for you in easy, picture form...
On the left... a zoom-in of: lima beans, grean beans, magret de canard (duck breast) and vegetarian pate!
On the right... the table. Witness the French-style taboule, the eighteen pounds of bread, the red wine (of course), and the radishes. Delish.









Here I am with the chef, herself:










The food was stunning and I have to say, I'm impressed - my parents rock at being social. It was 11 o'clock and I was falling asleep into my amazing mousse au chocolat and strawberry shortcake (sorry, no pictures... ate 'em too fast) and they were sharing stories with Micaela and Philip (the other dinner guest for the evening) back and forth. Fabulous.

Wednesday morning we set out for Paris, the three of us. I do believe M & D had a good time at Micaela's and I've got a picture right here...