la campagne en fête et la fête dans la ville

From countryside to city center, I celebrated the arrival of summer this weekend. A short drive back to Poix in Jean-Pierre's Volvo (An automatic, just for me. Why are they always surprised that I know my way around a 5-speed?!), and I was in the middle of la France profonde. A wagon, led by my favorite driver, horses and dog, ran the shuttle service from the field where I parked the car to the entrance. On tap for the day: cow judging, tractor driving and general country fun. A quick stop at la boulangerie for une baguette et quelques friands, coffee at Rachel's, and I was back in Amiens for dinner chez Chabaud-Deweirdt.

“I heard they're going to dump 3 tons of feathers from La Tour Perret,” the parents said. Emma and I were fascinated. “Please, Maman, can we go?” we both whined. Rendez-vous at 23h15 in front of the train station, where two of my least-favorite structures stand: the post-war Tour Perret, which supposedly tells you the hour by different colored lights but nobody knows how to read them, and the new glass roof in front of the train station. But none of that mattered – nor did the thousands of people who would have normally had this claustro-agorophobe in a nervous fit – because the spectacle of the soirée was beginning, and I was hooked from the get-go.

Cables descended from the top of the tower down to the train station. For 45 minutes, a dozen or so “angels” dangled and danced in dizzying formation above the crowd, distributing feathers along the way. We were well-placed for the finale, where large air-blowing machines (I'm unable to find a word for them in either language) were turned on, and the behind-the-scenes team scooped up feathers with their hands, placed them over the jets, and launched feathers into the sky. I must stay, it was one of the coolest things I've seen. Three tons of feathers? How many chickens, ducks and geese did that take?!

The next morning, I made a quick trip to the train station to meet the Webster-Dycus family, rather new friends in OKC who are spending a couple of days in Picardie. Joined by their hostess Maïté, we had café and chocolat chaud before they went on. Feathers from the night before swirled on the ground, and four-year old Thayer exclaimed, “C'est comme la neige ! On pourrait les manger ?”

The 21st of June is la fête de la musique, with free concerts in just about every town in France, but the weekend was also la fête des arts dans la rue, so Amiens was in full swing. Emma, Manon and I went to explore Sunday's activities, but were overall disappointed with the cirque, singing and man inside a 7-meter bubble who then put himself inside another balloon-like bubble. All said and done, I think I prefered the country!