Express By Holiday Inn Reims

We worked our way all the way up to Reims, the heart of the Champagne region. While Reims does have a pretty cool cathedral and I'm sure there is some historic stuff, we came for the champagne. We followed the Rue de Champagne down through all the little towns and Epernay. Then as was our luck, the Salon de Vins festival was taking place, so over 250 vintners from all over France were there to let us taste (and buy) their best. Some ...

... At first the elevator wouldn’t work, so we trekked the bags up a few flights. From there, things included a busted light in Pam’s face as she merely switched it on, a broken shower head (which Chad geniously MacGyvered with one of my hair bands), falling blinds from the hook as I tried to draw them closed for the night, and water was seeping out of the shower where it should have been sealed. Did I say seeping, I meant pouring! But all in ...

... around a corner &#8211; BAM! cathedral. Our group of 40 almost got hit by about 3 cars while we were looking at the outside because the roads run so close to the exterior. <br><br>I think this was my first cathedral interior that I&#8217;ve been in since we arrived in France. I&#8217;ve seen enough pictures and taken enough history classes to know what to expect, but you never get over ...

... time like we planned so no harm no foul. After a snack in the station we boarded our train and we were off to Reims!!<br><br>Reims is a very small town that is probably only a few miles wide. After getting off the train we walked through a park and were suddenly on the main boulevard in the town. Many of the streets are reserved for pedestrian use only and so it happened on the day we were in Reims that a festival was going on in the middle of this very wide ...

Birthday times are always exciting. It is generally an excuse to hang out with friends you have not seen in a while and have a few celebratory drinks. This year my birthday was no exception with the extra bonus of being taken away for a mystery weekend to celebrate by my two friends, Kerry and Martin. I had no idea where I was going and it was very exciting when I was told that I needed to bring my passport! <br><br>Having received my ...

... onto the highway was crawling, and continued to crawl for several more minutes once we were on the highway.<br><br>We did eventually hit the speed limit and at our second or third toll booth, mom realized one of her wallets was missing. Luckily she had separated her many currencies into different wallets and the one missing was the one with a little bit of Canadian money. Unluckily it also ...

... fellow travelers and turn them into friends. <br>Drinking all that afternoon champagne pretty much killed any ambition we had to go out later, so we snagged some sandwiches and chips near our hotel and stayed in for the evening. Which was fine, I had to catch up on writing and Marisa needed some rest. We've really been doing a tremendous amount of walking, drinking and eating, so some down time was deserved. I sure missed that pool, though, from the ...

Thanksgiving 2008 will, I am sure, go down as one of my most, um, original Thanksgivings.  I actually ended spending Thanksgiving night with three Russians at a Latino bar.  However, on Saturday we had a big Thanksgiving with a bunch of other language assistants.  Only two of us were American, but all nationalities contributed to making it happen.  How did we fair for our first Thanksgiving in France?   Let's start with the turkey ...

... la cathédrale, puis nous allons dîner. C'est ensuite, dans l'après-midi, une grande marche tranquille dans les rues de Reims ; il y a beaucoup de réparations sur les routes, mais sans trop gâcher le paysage. Et on revient tranquillement vers chez Samy. Le type est plus coloré et entrepreneur que je le croyais de prime abord. On le rencontre chez lui vers 18 heures, et son appart est vraiment bien (par la fenêtre, on ne voit que la cath ...

... was a bit sticky more flour was needed. James being James took it upon himself to get more flour - enough to pretend it was snowing on the toys that he and Emma had been driving through the playdough. The game was stopped shortly thereafter, two children were stripped of their flour-coated clothes and sent for a bath. "I'm hungry" announced Emma (a favourite saying at the moment) so the remaining pikelet mixture was cooked up for afternoon tea. As we had about an hour ...