Pâques!

In French, Pâques (plural, pronounced pak, and notice how it's reminiscent of "pascal") is the word for Easter. Pâque (pronounced the same way, and singular) is the word for Passover. Strange.

Easter Mass was nice. My choir and the choir school both sang, and they brought in a bunch of tenor and bass alumni, so there were about 150 people stuffed into the choir section of the cathedral. Mass doesn't have quite the same panache as it did before the bishop was promoted, but it was a really nice service. We even closed with the 'Allelujah chorus (the French don't know how to aspirate an H), so it felt quite festive. After Mass, I had Easter lunch with my landlord Anne, another of the students living in the house, and about twelve of her relatives and friends. I sort of know who's related to whom, but not quite. She served the traditional Easter food, which are stuffed hard boiled eggs reminiscent of deviled eggs. They weren't bad, though I don't generally like hard eggs. The main course was pork, and I think this was the first time I'd ever had pork for Easter. After most people had left, the six of us who were still there played a game of memory. It was a good afternoon, although honestly it put me into extraversion overdose: as an introvert, I can take constant company for a certain amount of time before I need to curl up in a ball. I'd been going non-stop since Wednesday. So I spent the rest of the day relaxing, organising, and enjoying the silence. Easter Monday is a national holiday in France, so I didn't have any classes and spent the day relaxing more.

Tuesday's exciting moment was in choir: the director gave me a solo! It's a solo quartet section in the Mendelssohn motet we're singing. In the States, there would have been an audition. In France, it was just assigned. And I was apparently the top choice among the sopranos. It's nice to have proof that one's self-confidence isn't unwarranted :)

Today, Wednesday, I gave a presentation in French class with Melissa from Missouri and Chloe from England. We talked about the Angers cathedral, and I got to talk about the things I didn't need to research: cathedral organisation, diocese organisation, and the Angers cathedral choirs. I prepared a bit last night, to make sure I had all the vocabulary I'd need and knew how to spell it, and it went quite well. It really is an interesting topic: for example, did you know that the Maîtrise de la Cathédrale, my choir, was founded in 1369? It's a rather old organization.

In other news, cinnamon sugar crêpes are delicious, the weather is annoyingly rainy, I turn 7777 days old in one week, it's not a good idea to make meatballs when you only half-remember the recipe, and I now have another blog! It's called Procrastination Made Simple and every day I post something fun I've found on the internet. It's a way for me to better organize the huge list of unlabelled links I have, and a fun way to share with you people. And I really will update it every single day, since unlike this blog, I don't have to wait until interesting things happen :) I've posted four times already, so there's plenty to help you procrastinate. Enjoy!