La Fête Nationale

Yesterday was France's "Fête Nationale" which is a national holiday (jour férié) commemorating the storming of the Bastille. From our perspective, it basically looked like their version of Canada Day/Independence Day. A day off, a reason to party, a fireworks show.

I won't pretend to know much at all about the history, but I can tell you how our day went.

Since the holiday itself fell on a Tuesday, some people got Monday and Tuesday off, making it a 4 day weekend that we didn't know we were getting until the hubby got to his bus stop for work Monday morning to find no people and no bus. Whoops!

Now, normally in Canada, I'm used to some more or less family friendly activities throughout the day culminating in a fireworks show after dark as the grand finale of the day. After that, people either go home or to house parties, bars, or other privately organized events. The publicly sanctioned fun is over. Goodnight.

Waiting for nightfall

Here, the fun started the night before the holiday. While there was nothing much (that I knew of) going on Monday, there was a fireworks show after dark to sort of kick off to the holiday. After the show, people could go home, to private events, OR to one of the many squares around town where a total of 14 free musical acts were set up to perform shortly AFTER the fireworks show. The 10pm fireworks show was just the beginning of the evening! And this is in a country town of 25,000 people. We went home, though.

I think it makes sense to have the fireworks the night before. It allows you much more freedom to celebrate a fireworks night when you don't have to be at work bright and early the next day.

I also want to mention the music used for the fireworks show because it was great. Songs included:

• Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - The Andrews Sisters
• Greased Lightning - Grease Soundtrack
• I Get Around - The Beach Boys
• Take a Chance On Me - Abba
• The Final Countdown - Europe

It was a blast!

And for all the awesome and explosive sound and light... both littles fell asleep mid-show! Go figure!

The next day, hubby wanted to check out a lake we'd heard about. Sadly the buses weren't running but luckily, he and Li'l Monkey discovered a firefighter demo at a park on the way home.

Beyond that it was just a quiet day which, once the boys were asleep, we capped off with a champagne toast to our One-Month-In-France-iversary. Rosé, of course, since this is Provence. So what if the actual one-month mark was 4 days ago and I'm sipping the champagne while I finish this post? Pshaw! Technicalities, I say! It works, and better late than never! To France! To Canada! To me! To you!

Cheers!