Our year-long nyckelharpa course has three separate one-week vacations, fall, winter (sports vacation in February), and spring (just before and after Easter), in addition to nearly three weeks off at Christmas-New Years. These breaks have been a very welcome respite from the intensity of this course!

We just had our Easter break. I felt like having a change of scene but with some familiarity, so I took four days and flew down to Paris. I hadn’t been to Paris in over 12 years. I stayed at the little hotel my father favoured, the Hotel Bradford Elysées. I’ve been there multiple times and just love it. It’s retained its old world beauty and ancient elevator (photo below), with updated bathrooms. I took the Metro and walked around the city and looked at art, ate delicious food, and remembered how to speak French. I used to speak French somewhat fluently. When I first started learning Swedish and was searching for a word, out would come French. On this visit when I was searching for a word, out came some Swedish. I’m hoping the foreign language compartment in my brain is expanding to accommodate Swedish, without kicking out any French.