I love good surprises, so imagine my joy when I received one of the most wonderful surprises over the weekend, a romantic concert experience and a sumptuous dinner to follow.
Since John is not someone who generally enjoys a surprise, he asked me this time last week how much time and preparation I would need if he planned a surprise. I didn't really know what to say, so I replied "Well, I guess I don't need much time, but if you need me to be at a certain place at a certain time, then I think a reasonable time should be allowed." I shoved it to the back of my mind, thinking it must be the musical "Spelling Bee" that I mentioned that I would like to watch.
On Saturday afternoon, I received a phone call from an anonymous person asking to speak to John about a nine o'clock dinner reservation. I didn't manage to catch the name of the restaurant and I also wondered if I had heard wrongly because nine was very late, and we never have our dinner this late, but I didn't persist on questioning the origin of the call. Deciding that this was the surprise, I played along and said "I think this is meant to be a surprise, and unfortunately, he is currently in a seminar which will end around 3 pm. Would you mind calling him back then?" She sounded a little sheepish and promised to do so. John called back about 20 minutes later to see if I had picked up a call and I mentioned in nonchalant fashion that there was someone who called about a 9 pm dinner reservation. He quickly dismissed it as a work function that he was organising and I played along.
I decided to give him some free time to himself so I settled on my weekly routine of Chinatown marketing and shopping after the phone call. On my way back, I received a phone call from John asking where I was, and I reassured him that I was near home. When I returned, he told me that I must have guessed that the dinner was the surprise, and I assured him that I really didn't know the name of the restaurant that we were going to. When he revealed it to be Wildfire, which we had a really wonderful dinner once with my ex-boss which was my farewell dinner at my last work, I was elated.
We left for dinner around 6 pm, parked the car about 1 km away, and started walking towards Sydney Opera House, because Wildfire was on Circular Quay. As we neared the Opera House, since it was still too early for our 7.30 pm dinner reservation (he says), he fished out two tickets to a cabaret performance by French singer Caroline Nin: Hymne a Piaf. It was her tribute to Edith Piaf. I was shocked because I had no idea and this is such a generous and lovely gift, but it did help to explain why the dinner reservation was at nine.
It was his present to me for showering my love and support during these past few months, and it was a really sweet gesture. When I didn't show any exhilaration, he questioned my admiration for Piaf and I reassured him that it was probably that I was still recovering from my surprise.
We walked into the small intimate hall (the Studio) and sat on the first row, though not exactly in front of Caroline because there were tables and chairs in front of us to replicate the feel of a downtown French cabaret bar. Caroline started off with a relatively unknown Piaf song in English and then polished it off in French. We were both wondering if she was going to continue this potentially tiresome routine, but we were soon very pleasantly treated to a journey in France and a trip down Piaf's life. Caroline has her roots in Jazz and though she never reaches the power of the original Edith Piaf and is disappointing to some, I found it so soothing to hear her interpret Piaf's songs with a jazz twist, and entertaining at the same time as she re-enacted scenes in some of these songs. In poetic fashion, she retold the stories in the songs, which would otherwise have been lost on most of the English speaking crowd. She drew John and I into this romantic swirl and left us enthralled, our escapade in Paris, French music and love.
It kicked off the perfect start and by the time the 1 hour and 10 minute concert ended, we were in the mood for a romantic dinner. There was way too much delicacies and also too much champagne for me, but this really made up for the horrible times that we shared last month. It also help squash all myths that couples cannot find romance five years down the road. I believe we love each other more than we did in the first year and this was one of the definitive ways to celebrate it. Easily one of the most memorable and romantic evenings we shared, I will never forget it. Thank you my love ...
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