Sunday

Sunday was the day for all of the Language Assistants of the Reims district to meet up here. So after breakfast I checked out of my room, scattering my baggage between C's room (since I was still going to be with her) and the "bagagerie" (storage room). Then I ran to the cathedral to make it to mass. The cathedral is enormous, but Sunday mass took up only a small portion of the area. I didn't even see where it was until I walked back some, past the line of immense columns, to the very heart of this church. We faced the two beautiful rose windows. It was reassuring to go to mass. Even in French it was familiar and comforting.

FYI: today on a tour we learned this is the fourth largest organ in France! On the exterior are statues. I knew I recognized that smiling angel...and I remembered that these four figures show the Annunciation (Gabriel gives news to Mary) and the Visitation (Mary visits her sister Elizabeth).

After mass, I met Christina. Her agenda for the day was to go to a champagne tasting. She secured us an appointment at Mumm cellars (on the north side of Reims) for 2pm, so we chose a scenic route there and began walking. We stopped to see the Porte de Mars, a Roman ruin from the 3rd century.

Especially in this part of town, we noticed a lot of construction going on - what looks like train tracks. On the way back I realized I had read about Reims building a Metro system - so that's what it's about!

By the time we got to Mumm, we were hungry! And few, few places are open Sundays here. Luckily a restaurant about a block down was serving lunch. There was one menu, with four courses: pâté croûte (meat surrounded in pastry), langue (cow tongue! blech...), fromages (cheeses), and flan. What a lunch! We split it and were both full. (And that's without even finishing the tongue.) The servers didn't speak English and I acted as translator. It felt authentic and typically French. Then we got the check and headed to the tour and tasting.

We descended stairs, and toured the cool, dim champagne cellars. We saw the oak barrels that were first used to ferment grape juice at Mumm, back in the 19th century! The tour guide explained how champagne is made - it's a precise procedure!

This shows the angles at which the bottles are tilted in order to get all of the yeast particles (added to make bubbles within the bottle) into the bottleneck. After that, the bottle is turned upside down and the tip is frozen to make a little icecube - then they open it for a sec to "explode" out the ice & get rid of the yeast in it! Make sense? I thought it was innovative. But then, this process has been perfected and passed down for centuries.

After going through the tour, we got to compare their popular Cordon Rouge brut champagne with their Vintage from 2002. They might look the same (supposedly the vintage is darker), but the difference in taste was noticable - even to me! I could taste the "complex flavors" of the vintage compared to the brut - so naturally I only drank the vintage. It may be considered taboo here to waste champagne, but why drink what I don't like? :)

After that we returned to the room (well, C's room now - I had a new room with other assistants who were arriving Sunday night). While I was using my laptop in C's room still, another girl walked in - and she so happened to be an assistant going to the same town as me! Quelle coincidence!

I must leave you at that. I'll update about my orientation soon!