My students wanted to thank the staff and faculty at the Château for all they did this semester. We decided to make Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo for them. It turned out very nicely.

Thanks to the generosity of Carlo Krieger, the former Luxembourg Ambassador to China, I was able to attend an organ concert by Marina Tchebourkina in Dudelange. The concert was co-sponsored by the Ambassadors of France and of Russia. The concert was held in the beautiful Église Saint-Martin.

photo credit: Alyssa Portnoy

After a truly wonderful lunch at Le Roc du Boeuf, we headed back to Luxembourg via Paris. It was dark by then and a Sunday night, but Paris was still full of life. Most of the pictures I took look like what you’d expect to see when you use a cell phone camera at night, but this one wasn’t too bad:

We went to Saint Junien, primarily to go to the market. I didn’t take many pictures because it was raining for much of the day. Here’s a photo of the outside of the marché couvert de Saint Junien on a nicer day, and here’s one of the inside. The town is incredibly picturesque. Here’s a photograph of the main pedestrian street, again on a sunnier day.

Happy May Day!

We started the day by walking around Rochechouart. Since it was a holiday, nearly everything—save on café—was closed. This is the Château de Rochechouart, or at least part of it:

I introduced myself to some of the neighbors who were out in the rain:

The donkeys were very friendly. Here you can see part of one forcing his way into the picture.