It has been a tumultuous week for the Embees. It started with news that our grandson Aidan had to be taken to Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg Florida with an acute kidney problem. He was there for the week hooked up to IVs and poked and probed by doctors and nurses. He was all swollen and pale and through it all he maintained his normal good humor and charm. He is home now and we all hope that he is on the road to complete recovery. As if in sympathy with his problems, I had a touch of medical issues myself. I had been feeling a bit tired and listless since my return from Bulgaria and had some issues with painful urination, but I chalked it up to jet lag. On Monday I went flying, fortunately with an instructor, in order to keep up my license. I knew I wasn’t truly focused when I couldn’t seem to plug in my earphones, but when I forgot to lower flaps and pull out the carb heat upon my downwind approach to landing, I knew something was really wrong. When I was home I explained all of this to Cindy who diagnosed me with a urinary tract infection. I then found blood in my urine, and nothing gets your attention like blood in your urine, which simply confirmed that I needed to get to a doctor. Sure enough I had a urinary tract infection that required a bit of rest and some strong antibiotics, which cleared everything up in three days. Not at all sure how E. Coli gets into the urinary tract but it sure did and knocked me for a loop for a few days.
Things got a whole lot better on Friday when we took off for Paris. We had a lovely flight on a new Air France Airbus 380. We flew in the new Premier Economy on the upper deck and it was truly a grand experience. I gave the flight attendants my normal gift of See’s Lollipops and you would think I had handed them large diamonds. One of them came up and asked if I would like to visit the cockpit before takeoff and you can imagine my response. This is a super modern aircraft and the captain gave me a really comprehensive tour of the cockpit for about fifteen minutes, which I thought was most gracious of him. Not only is the aircraft big and spacious, it is also very, very quiet. I found out that there are about twenty video cameras on the plane and the captain can scan all of them in case of some security incident. There is also a camera mounted on the tail of the plane that is activated upon take off and landing so that all the passengers can see what the pilot sees.
Our flight attendant made sure that we were well hydrated with French liquids and it was really a nice trip. The configuration on the 380 upper deck is 2-3-2 so we had a window/aisle with two large windows to enjoy the take off and climb out. The seats were comfortable and the TV screen was large and the movie selections enormous.
From CC: Wm is right, the extra space was great and Premier Economy is so much better than regular economy. However, when the food came we might as well have been in economy – everything was served at once on a little tray with flat paper envelopes for the salt and paper, wrapped Monterey Jack cheese as a “cheese course,” stale bread, etc. What I really noticed was the little tiny thin red paper napkin, and just then Wm whipped out two large cloth napkins from home! With buttonholes in one corner like proper airplane napkins (thanks, Kari, for giving those to Wm years ago).
Back to Wm: We managed a few hours sleep and landed early at 5:30 am. An hour later we were leaving CDG in our rental car and heading to the Champagne country. There was very little traffic that early on a Saturday and we made good time with no hassles. As we approached Reims, the Champagne capital of the galaxy, the sun was just coming up and we could see what appeared to be an endless string of hot air balloons rising with the mist in the early morning light. As we got closer we could see their beautiful colors and Cindy noticed that they were being launched in intervals. We think it must have been some type of race or rally or whatever hot air balloonists have, but it was sure pretty.
We got to our hotel in Chalons en Champagne at about 9 am and found out that our room wouldn’t be ready until 12:30. We had hoped against hope that we might be able to get in right away and take a long nap, but instead we just walked for four hours around this magnificent city. It is very small and compact and filled with gardens and canals and half-timbered houses. The morning was cold but sunny and there was a Saturday outdoor market as well as a lovely covered food market so we had plenty to see and do. We had a few coffee breaks and finally, overcome with hunger and exhaustion, settled in for a light lunch of salads and wine. By 1 pm our lunch was done and our room ready and we collapsed for a well deserved two-hour nap followed by a two-hour walk in one of the most beautiful parks I’ve ever encountered.
From CC: we’ve been planning these few days in France for several weeks and had originally reserved a room in a suburb of Paris … but then got to thinking that we’d rather be in a city (other than Paris). Out came the Michelin Guide - we had just bought the 2011 version. As great as the Internet is, we still love that big red book of ratings for hotels and restaurants with its great maps and other information. We settled on Chalons en Champagne and found a hotel we could afford … we also seemed to remember having stayed there before but our memories were fuzzy other than the fact that it was just after NY’s, we’d had a big lunch with friends in Paris, and had an overnight stopover as we drove toward our home in Frankfurt. We had vowed to never eat again … but lo and behold after checking into the hotel and walking around a bit, the smells from the hotel kitchen overcame us and we ended up eating a lovely dinner.
And that’s ALL we remembered until I dug out my travel journal from 1984 and confirmed some details (in our defense, in 1984 we’d arrived after dark and then left early the next morning). The confusing part was that I had written that we stayed in Chalons sur Marne – and while this city is indeed on the Marne, that doesn’t seem to be its name. Writing the wrong name of a city in my journal seemed like a very odd mistake to have made – but just today I found out that they changed the name to Chalons en Champagne in 1998! I am so relieved.
Back to Wm: We enjoyed a lovely dinner last night at the same place we had lunch. The waiter took us to our ‘usual’ table and we started with ice-cold glasses of Champagne. The dinner was okay, nothing spectacular, but the wine was cold and the bread was fresh and we had a delightful evening. We walked around the square for a bit and decided to have a nightcap at the bar next to our hotel. It was really hysterical. We were the oldest people in there by at least thirty years. We sat at the bar and Cindy had an Armagnac and I had a glass of Aligote, a fiercely dry white wine from Burgundy. We watched with amazement as they made enormous mixed drinks with lots of color and fruit and enough alcohol to choke a horse. The noise level picked up when a group of fifteen twenty-somethings came in so we downed our drinks and headed home, which was a very short walk. We hit the sack at about eleven and woke up totally refreshed at ten this morning. As Cindy ran in the park, I walked and took lots of photos, which I’ll try to post sometime this week. We went to the best bakery in town, judging from the lines, and got a croissant and a small baguette and went to the big square where there was a lovely café with lots of tables in the sun for our morning noisette (a small espresso with some milk).
We came back and cleaned up and headed out again for the Cathedral Saint-´Etienne, which is only open on Sunday. This is a stunningly beautiful building that has been closed for twenty years but is now open to the public for limited hours. It is a soaring structure and filled with lots of light, unlike so many churches in Europe. Also, unlike most churches in Europe, they had volunteer guides who spoke English and met us at the entrance to tell us particular things to notice. A lovely touch. The light was just perfect for us to really see all the detail in the stained glass, which is everywhere. Best of all, we had the joint to ourselves and could wander and linger as we did for forty minutes.
We walked along the River Marne for a while and then through the park again and by two o’clock we were a bit hungry and adjourned for a light lunch to the café where we had coffee this morning. It was an Alsatian place that had a grand flammkuechen and some dry white Alsatian wine that took us back in time to a place we used to eat outside of Strasbourg. All and all, a perfect Sunday in France.
Best wishes to all, Cindy and Wm.
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