On the Way to Reims
In Reims
And Then, Paris...
Ordinarily, the journey to a destination would not be considered interesting. This, in a sense, is no exception, except that from start to finish it took us eight hours. As was mentioned earlier, we started our trip in Belgium and planned to go to Reims by way of Luxembourg. The first part of the journey was uneventful, to say the least. The second was a mix of uneventful and high-class action. At the Luxembourg train station, we were given directions on how to catch the train to Reims. This involved changing trains twice. Once in Chalons-en-Champagne, and once somewhere else-the name evades me. Things started to get worrisome, when our train randomly stopped in the middle of nowhere. At first, the delay did not bother us. However, after half an hour, we realised that we would be unable to make our connection. The train did not oblige us by moving, however, so waited another half hour. Meanwhile the conductor came around asking for end destinations, whereupon we were told that we didn't want to get out at the first train station, but at the second. Finally, the train started to move, and the worrying started. Where were we supposed to get out? Overhead announcements soon resolved that the train was altering its course. Meanwhile, we had an animated discussion about walking to Reims and sleeping in vineyards, should we be so unlucky as to miss the connecting train. Luckily, we didn't have to that. We did get to partake in a mad dash to catch the next train. For while Eugene was busy taking pictures of Yoriko running, I heard the announcement that are train was leaving from the next track. This explained why all the other passengers who got off had made a mad dash down the stairs. We soon followed them, complete with heavy backpacks and day packs. But we did manage to get to Reims, afterall.
Ah, Reims. The first real stage of our trip. The first indicator of things to come. But we did love it here. Taking the train into Reims proved to be a bit worrying. According to the guidebook, Reims was town with a beautiful cathedral. From the train, no cathedral was to be seen, and the town was ugly. Furthermore, our guidebook had no map, neither did the train station. Well, it had a bus map, but it was useless. So after some consideration, we walked out and headed in the direction that we hoped would get us to the youth hostet. Luckily, it did, although we could have saved ourselves the trouble, since it was full. Apparently, they were holding a conference, and all the rooms were taken up by business men. So much for youth hostels. They did, however, refer us to another hotel, which was in a much better location and about 5 Francs more expensive, so it all ended up for the better. Referring back to photographs, we were still happy at this point despite having traipsed all over town with heavy backpacks. So after depositing our belongings and convincing the owner of the hotel that we really didn't want breakfast in the morning, we went out to see the town. And eat. This is when we fell in love with Reims, for the cathedral is beautiful and imposing. Unfortunately, it was cold and we were hungry, and food was expensive, so we were introduced to our travel diet: not very much food. The next day took us on a mad search for a supermarket, which we eventually found by following people with loaves of bread in their shopping bags. Monoprix, the first in a series of favourite supermarkets provided us with bread, cheese, yoghurt, various other things, and orange juice. Yes, the same orange juice which prompted Yoriko to jump about the park cheering, "Let's drink the orange juice!". Evidently, this was something very exciting. Then, off to our cathedral-because, yes, it was ours. The cathedral was gorgeous, the members of the GRS (Geriatric Religious Society) were not, but we didn't know that yet. After the cathedral, we walked across town to see another church, stopping along the way for pain au chocolat-we were very hungry. At a playground along the way, we ate lunch, and then came to the church, which after the trying the door appeared to be closed. So we wandered around, wondering what to do, and upset that we couldn't go in, when someone walked out, and we eagerly, sneaked in-or so we thought. As we snuck down the aisles, thinking that we had luckily intruded, a busload of the GRS entered. Later, we realised that the door was supposed to be pushed, not pulled. The church was followed by a trip to the champagne caves, along with the rest of the GRS. Yes, millions of bottles of champagne, and we were there with them. The free sample at the end was particularly good. And thus, after a trip to the sandwich store, concluded our trip in Reims-I think we saw just about everything.
Three days later than intended, we finally arrived in Paris. And we were ready to do a crash tour. And crash tour it certainly was. Paris in two days. We felt the effects. After checking into the youth hostel, we deposited our bags and went out to see the town. But since we were trying to save money on metro tickets, we decided to see the town on foot. And Paris is big. So we saw the sights, as well as Eugene's friends Fumi and Ken. Seeing the sights included a 6km walk from the Notre Dame to L'Arc de Triomphe, which was preceeded by a walk from the Musee d'Orsay, and followed by a walk back down the Champs Elysees. However, we had a wonderful dinner of couscous that evening, finally filling our very empty stomachs. This dinner was so wonderful, that the next day, in the Louvre, all pots looked like couscous pots. We actually managed to avoid the lines at the Louvre, by coming five minutes to nine, the opening time. The Mona Lisa was somewhat disappointing. Not that one could get very close with the crowd of people standing around it. We did find a very spooky painting that we looked, which seemed to stare at us from all corners of the room, and of course, there was the Mesopotamian cow. The sections of older art were definately less crowded. In the afternoon, we made the requisite trip to the Eiffel tower and walked up to the 2nd level. We also went to see the Sacrecoeur up on Montmatre. However, none of the churches lived up to our cathedral in Reims. They were all far too touristy. That evening, we ate dinner in a very strange pizzeria. We were the only one's there. We didn't have much of a choice, we couldn't find any other place to eat, where we could actually sit down. And our whirlwind tour finally ended as we boarded our first night train to Barcelona.
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