Reims. It Rhymes with France

Reims. It rhymes with France. Nope, I am not kidding. This French language is like something backyard kids made up to keep the grown ups from understanding their shenanigans.

We find ourselves in Paris, the world of champagne and caviar, but our morning breakfast consists of Kellogg’s cornflakes. Lunch is usually skipped altogether and dinner is…Picard. Two Euro, four minutes in the microwave and then the magic happens. It’s gut-hugging laughable that I always look for apartments to rent with a full kitchen. As if.

So we decided to take the train to the Champagne region for a little indulgence. Let me tell you what indulgence à la Osh looks like: Train at 9:40am, no place to sit. Arrive in rain. Tourist office too busy. Taxi to Taittinger cellars. Jump into a 30 or more people tour called a “Tour maximum 20”. The cellars were pretty awesome if I could’ve heard myself think over the crying baby (do you know caves echo?) and the extraordinarily loud Dutchman. The champagne tastings they served were bubblicious but I could hear none of the finer details about what we were drinking due again to the baby and the Dutchman.

We trudged back to the cathedral where most of the kings of France were throned and at least one pope was baptized. Stained glass by Chagalle, yada yada. Then walked all the way back to Veuve Cliquot cellars only to realize there was positively no way we would get a tour and still catch our train. Seven miles we walked that day in the drizzle, passing a Raiders of the Lost Ark carnival. I would rate our trip in totality very much below the epic scale.

Reims. I want to say “a place for dreams” because that seems like it should rhyme and also be true. But Reims, it rhymes with France, saw it in a glance, loud baby chants and rude Dutchman rants. I was not entranced with Reims.

Bet you won’t ever call it REAMS again.