Reims? Reimz? Rheimz? what, it's said RHANCE?

While a short visit, Reims was a great city.

After a nice pre-dawn walk to my metro, I met up with Marielle at Gare de l'Est a full 40 minutes before our train was supposed to leavem because we wanted to make sure we had enough time to not be rushed. We figured out how to get our tickets, and found what we thought was the correct quai (platform). After congratulating ourselves on figuring out train transportation for about 25 minutes, we realized we were, in fact, at the wrong quai. So, with about one minute before our train was scheduled to depart, we freaked out.
Thus, we had a wonderful movie moment... chasing after the train, carrying all our things (well, I only had a backpack and a purse) as it was literally leaving the station. Mad Dash included, we made it, and enjoyed a nice hour and a half trip up to Northeastern France. For those of you who haven't seen it, the French country side is absolutely georgous, and I must say, kicks the butt of the midwestern cornfields. I tried to take a couple pics, but nothing really came out. So, the pic is thanks to google image search...

Once there, Marielle and I found a map(ish...it was more of a bus route map than a actual map) and walked to our hostel, checked in, and then set off to explore Reims. The whole city is small, it only takes about half an hour to walk from one end to the other (once you know where you're going) but it's idyllic. The Cathedral was georgous; it also has some cool history to it, it's where all the French kings were coronated, starting with Clovis. I actually liked it more than the Notre Dame de Paris; to me, it has the grandeur of any cathedral, but it still feels like a church...it didn't feel like a museum, like NDdP does.



After the Cathedral, we got lunch at a little family run brasserie, where we had excellent croque-monseiurs (grilled ham and cheese, french style) and salads. For Dessert, we'd seen a boulangerie that we just had to try. It was called Pauls, and I would reccommend it to ANYONE in the area. They'd been in business since 1889, and they knew what they were doing. I had the best raspberry tarte i'd ever had.

After lunch we continued our self guided walking tour, stopping at the Basilica, walking into a posh hotel thinking it was a champagne house and promptly being escorted to the door (I guess we didn't look like clientele...), some little parks, and Pommery, a Maison de Champagne.




For Pommery, we got to take a guided tour of les caves, or the caverns, where all the champagne is aged.
There was a great ambience down there, but piles and piles and piles of champagne bottles are only interesting for so long. We weren't allowed into the area where they actually make the champagne, which is what i'd been interested in seeing, but it was still cool see some of the process.
There was a champagne tasting included, and if you're looking for champagne, i'd recommend Pommery! Afterwards, we returned to the centre-ville where we enjoyed some hot chocolate in the same brasserie, along with some "chocolate shots".



"Chocolate shots", as we came to call them, were some chocolates we had bought. they were labelled as "chocolate avec champagne". We had both assumed that meant they would have a champagne flavored creme inside. Much to our surprise, there was a liquid shot in the middle of the chocolate, which pretty much tasted like a combination of vodka and rubbing alcohol. The chocolate was good though...For your enjoyment, here is a series of pics of me enjoying the chocolate!



Along with Marielle's reaction:











After the hot chocolate, we met up with some couchsurfers for drinks, which also turned into dinner. If you don't know what i mean by couchsurfers, calm yourself, I'm going to write my next entry about couchsurfing, what it is, and what my experience with it has been so far. For now, Marielle and I got to hang out with some locals all night!

After an exhausting conversation (five and a half hours of straight french gets tiring!), Marielle and I made it back to the hostel, just as they were closing the front desk. Needless to say, we both crashed around midnight.

The next morning, we did some more exploring, but the rain, and the fact it was sunday, really didn't leave a lot of options open. We caught our afternoon train back to the city, and I made it back in time to take a shower before eating dinner with Stan and Caro.

Absolutely great weekend. Makes me wish i'd started little trips like this before, but i'm glad I took the time to get to know Paris like I did.

bisous!