Lunch Break!

 Tickets Resto!  

For certain “provided” meals, Road Scholar is giving us “tickets resto”, vouchers for eating at participating restaurants.  These are part of an employee’s benefits when their employer doesn’t have a cantine that offers lunch.  The employee as well as the employer pays into the system (like social security or health benefits) so it is to their benefit to participate.  The goal is to continue that very French tradition of a long lunch at restaurants and typically colleagues will get together and go out to lunch ensemble.

If one of the symbols above is displayed in the restaurant’s window or if it has a TR sticker,  it means they accept the ticket resto.  “ The tickets can represent a maximum amount of 11,38 euros per ticket and starts from 7,50 euros. The amount differs according to the company.”  We’ll see how much Road Scholar gives us.  I believe it’s supposed to cover the price of a formule lunch (the fixed price lunch) but you can also use it at grocery stores for food.  However, you don’t get change back.  You can read all about it at Ensemble en France.

Our first ticket resto lunch is on Friday of the first week of classes and every Friday thereafter when we have a “cultural” excursion in the afternoon together with our Group Leader.  That’s when we go to sites like the Hôtel de Caumont, the Atelier Cézanne, Nice, the Musée Granet, and the Santons Fouque.  Of course, Road Scholar might change the itinerary but that’s what’s up there now.  I’m looking forward to it!

Back to France

 On Monday we bit the bullet and signed up for Road Scholar’s Living and Learning in Provence, which is 6 weeks in Aix-en-Provence but not until April of NEXT year (2026)!  I had been floating the idea around and nobody seemed to have any objections and it was good we signed up Monday morning.  Fernando looked at the Road Scholar web page that afternoon and the April-May dates were SOLD OUT so apparently we got the last spot!  Otherwise we would have had to settle for February-March or October-November.  After going to Sicily in late November I’ve decided against the darker months, especially if one is out in the countryside.  Give me long days, even if the temperature is a bit warmer, although we will see if May in Provence changes my mind.  May in Northern Spain was lovely.

We’ll feel like students again!

Naturally I’ve been practicing my French these last two days and what better way than to watch YouTube videos while I’m recumbent biking.  At first I was scouring YouTube for any videos on Aix but the ones in English are by visitors and what can you really know about a town if you only visit for a day or two?  And of course the things they show you are pretty much the same.  The best I found was filmed 6 years ago by Dennis Callan, who apparently leads tours of France and you’ll see his tour group from Honolulu in this video:  https://youtu.be/Iu1f6S_Mek4?si=wX7Av5MCxUsrLpGY

Unfortunately there aren’t any couples like Les Frenchies who are covering the food scene in Provence in English so I decided to try my luck in French but YouTube by default brings up the English results so you have to train it to search in French.  My latest find has been Les Carnets de Julie, which is a production of France.tv and, although the video on Provence is 8 years old, it gave me an opportunity to practice listening to French.  I understood a few words here and there…

No, Mr. Littman did a very good job teaching me; something I learned early on in college and graduate school.  But listening to and understanding a native French speaker is something entirely different from reading French.  It’s those liaisons.  I tried slowing down the playback speed on YouTube to 75% but that made it worse.  Fortunately the Provence video by Julie didn’t have captions so I wasn’t distracted from listening.  She has a video from 2 months ago on Noel in Nice which has captions in English, French or Spanish.  Fortunately one can turn them off because what I need now is to listen to French, not read it.

Our Week in Baltimore

This last week Penny and I attended a Road Scholar program at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore covering Chopin, Liszt and Vladimir Horowitz.  We were the youngest among the attendees, the oldest being 95 but not looking it at all.  I thought it was a rather rigorous schedule, attending two classes in the morning and then spending the afternoon visiting the Peabody Library and the Walters Art Museum, learning about the history of the piano, attending a Master Class in voice and a symphony rehearsal.  And then after dinner we would attend two recitals, one at 7:15 and the other at 8:30 pm.  I was pretty tired at the end of the day but all those folks older than us kept right up with the program.  The food wasn't gourmet (we ate at the dining hall) but the coffee was awfully good and we needed a lot of it to keep us going.  The highlight of the program was hearing the Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Opus 109 three times.  Or was it four?  When I left on Friday I had a lot of music in my head and only wish I could separate the tunes and assign them to the right composer...

We didn't take too many photos of the Peabody but were able to get out on Thursday afternoon to visit Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Fell's Point, and eat out at an Italian restaurant where Penny was able to get her crabcake (the dining hall only had codcakes).

Penny and her crabcake at Dalesio's

Doorway with crab in Fell's Point

Bertha's Mussels where we ate once with the kids

Somehow I pictured Bertha as heavier.

a street in Little Italy

Another doorway in Fell's point

They all had wreaths

a street in Fell's Point

Fell's Point

Can you see the UnderArmour factory across the harbor?

Resident sea gulls in the Inner Harbor

Sanitary Plant and Museum

Coast Guard boat in the Inner Harbor

Coast Guard boat

Marsh restoration...

Taking Photos

Dragon Paddle Boats

Penny lost her hat on the bus and had to buy a new one at H&M

All sorts of things to see in the Inner Harbor

Ripley's Believe it or not

Historic schooner in the Inner Harbor

Half our class

Enjoying the dining hall.  The coffee was wonderful!

The food could have been worse and we did have a selection

The other half of the classroom

Neurosurgery rare books exhibit in the Peabody Library

The classic cast iron balconies in the Peabody Library

Quite spectacular

Even the door handles were beautiful.

Typical bay windows in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood

Mt. Vernon Church near Peabody Institute

I'm not sure what they were celebrating here

Francis Scott Key died on the the site of the church

You can see that the blue/green stone was not discolored like the other stone.
Do you think it has copper in it that acts as a fungicide?

Lots of historic houses in Mt. Vernon

George Peabody

Entrance to the Peabody Institute of Music

Our much photographed church

The side door to the Peabody

This is the Peabody Inn -- dorm for graduate students