Champagne Region: Germaine, Epernay, and Reims

Well, this was our last day in Champagne country. I wish I could say we did a great deal of sightseeing, but we spent much of our time just trying to figure out where basic necessities are to be found (like supermarkets, clothing stores, atms, and a particularly epic quest to track down contact solution), how to get to these locations (with the help of a GPS that randomly and murderously tries to send us the wrong direction down one way streets and onto trolley tracks), and finally when these places are actually open. My knowledge of French has tripled, which means I now know about thirty phrases, including “Je ne comprends pas” (translation: I don't understand) and “Parlez-vous anglais?” (translation: Do you speak English?). Furthermore, the two least likely candidates to be consider potential morning people have been waking up at 5am every day, before the sun even rises here (curse you jetlag!).

Yesterday, Brian and I successfully infiltrated the notoriously haughty and chaotic streets of downtown Reims and bought some quality clothes, quite stylish if I do say so myself. I now finally have some warm attire for the cloudy, rainy weather we’ve had here in France thus far. Reims is truly a beautiful city, like every part of this region of France, with a huge central shopping district brimming with tourists, golden statues, fountains, little cafes and bakeries, and even a huge and gaudy carousal.

Earlier we explored Epernay, the nearest big town to our tiny Germaine, which is a perfect example of the architecture of this area, boasting beautiful cathedrals, narrow cobble stone streets, stone works from the 1500’s, and canals brimming with truly jade green water. We had hoped to grab lunch there, but upon arriving every restaurant was closed down, despite our earlier googling which had informed us lunch was generally from 11 to 1 in France. Instead we wandered about till our hunger pangs sent us back to the one place we knew to get food: the supermarket. So far we’ve basically subsisted off coffee and pastries for breakfast and cheese, cut meats, and bread for dinner, being too jet lagged and overwhelmed from our daily treks out into the wild French world to deal with getting dinner out.

As of tomorrow we head off to our second vacation rental, located in the Loire Valley, a four hour drive that takes us south west. Brian’s had plenty of practice these last few days driving with the heinously aggressive locals and so hopefully tomorrow’s drive will involve less cursing and stress then it did on our first drive from Paris to Germaine. At least this time we have tokens for the many toll booths… see how far we’ve come?!