The University in Clermont-Ferrand which Blaise gave his talk at is involved in an exchange program with Kansas State. This meant that in addition to giving a talk to the philosophers there, Blaise was supposed to meet, at least briefly, with the woman in charge of the international exchange student program at the university. So Thursday morning he left after breakfast to go to meet with her and then afterwards to go to a philosophy of math discussion of some sort. (I must confess that I only sort of know what he did in Clermont-Ferrand work wise. I know he had some meetings and some talks and stuff like that, but I'm not really all that interested in the details.)
Then, he and I and the kids and both Sébastiens went out for lunch at a little restaurant that is owned and run by a friend of one of the Sébastiens (not the one who invited us over for dinner on Tuesday). The food was good. The conversation was good. The bathroom was up an impossibly narrow spiral staircase, and of course Cherry needed to go to the bathroom thrice, and Ezio once.
Afterwards, the second Sébastien took us for a walk around Clermont-Ferrand, showing us what there was to see. We started by walking over to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, which is built out of black volcanic rock. Its twin black spires are visible (and easy to identify) from all over town. On the wall above one of the outer doors was an ode recognizing the supreme being, dating to the French revolution and later covered up. It was discovered recently during restoration, much to the horror of the priest, who wanted to have it removed, or at least recovered. Since it is of historical significance it remains uncovered.
Next we went to Notre-Dame-du-Port, which was the church in which Sébastien and his wife were married 1o years ago. Since then, the church has undergone significant work, and the dark interior of then has been clean and painted so that it is now a light yellow. Outside, we climbed the belvedere (viewpoint) to get a look at the outside of the church.
We wended our way back through the streets of Clermont-Ferrand, stopping at the wine shop of a friend of Sébastien so that the kids could use the bathroom. We bought some wine. And the owner began wrapping it in magenta tissue paper. And of course all three of my children promptly announced that they got the tissue paper when we got home. So Sébastien politely observed to his friend that there were 3 children, and only 2 pieces of tissue paper, thereby obtaining for us not 1 but 6 additional sheets of tissue, for which the children thanked him graciously.
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