On Tuesday and Thursday mornings the school's Parent Association hosts a coffee/get-together at Le Vigny, a café and brasserie just down the street from the school, in the corner of Boulevard de Courcelles and Rue Alfred de Vigny. Generally a small group of people meets for coffee and conversation after dropping off the kids at school. We enjoy sharing stories of what brought us all to Paris and to this particular school.
Dianny and I have become regulars and are usually there at 9. By now the waiter in the picture knows us and, after exchanging "bonjours," brings us our usual espressos, but in keeping with French tradition we do not address him by his name, just Monsieur.
The café gets its name from the street it's on, Rue Alfred de Vigny, a 19th century French poet. Just a short block from this cafe was the workshop where the Statue of Liberty was built in the 1880s. The corner building, where Le Vigny is located, seems unchanged.
Every morning they publish their menu of the day on two
ardoises, small, portable blackboards, one of which is right behind where we usually sit (and written by someone who mastered French cursive). So while we're having a morning coffee I'm already thinking about lunch. One of these days we'll just stay there till noon and enjoy their gigot d'agneau or magret de canard.
