Saturday 7:15 a.m.
Oh god. This time of day shouldn't exist. Especially on a Saturday. My eyes struggle to open like a heavy, old, rusty-hinged door. Devyn and I have to be at the bus at 8 to take us to the first of our two champagne house tours. Why did I think this was a good idea the night after some intense Parisian reveling? But the idea of touring two vineyards/champagne houses and getting some possible free samples was too enticing to just hit the snooze button. So in a blur, we're in front of one of our school buildings, coffee in hand, and boarding the bus with the rest of our puffy-eyed, yawning revelers from the night before.
It's very funny to share each other's "morning after reveling" processes. Our friends from Loyola University in Baltimore keep going on and on about their intense desire for a bagel from some bagel place to cure their post-reveling condition.
(** By now you've realized that "reveling" is my word of choice for certain collegiate activities. Keeping things PG here people. I have two grandmothers following this blog. Shoutout to you guys, Nana and Mimi. **).
Now I'm sure all the GW folks out there have their own "morning after reveling" process, but this will hit home for most of you. Someone who will not be named in our GW group then utters something to the tune of:
"I would kill an infant to get a Deli bacon, egg, and cheese right now."
All us GW folks nod our heads in agreement while our friends from Loyola stare somewhat horrified at this person's willingness to bump off a young baby for a breakfast sandwich. But all you GW folks know what I'm talking about. ANYWAY...
The bus departs the city limits of Paris and we see the beautiful countryside with the sun shining, the grass greener than I've ever seen, and the sky a bright blue.
I'm completely kidding. We all look like this for the entire 2 hour trip.
After a pretty solid nap that reinvigorates us just enough to lift our heads and look out the window, we see the G.H. Mumm champagne house. Our first stop. We're led into a small movie theatre where a film begins to play and tells us a bit of the history of G.H. Mumm Champagne. I was still a bit groggy, so honestly the narrator sounded like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon. The film ends, and the screen retracts into the ceiling, revealing a door that our tour guide leads us into, down some stairs and into an underground chamber with multiple pathways stemming out in all different directions. My mind immediately flashes back to the Catacombs and I know sure as anything that I'm not in the mood to see a bunch of human bones. That never happens. Instead, we're led through tunnels lined with gigantic barrels of champagne made from grapes across the French countryside.
Through more passageways we go as we listen to our guide explain how champagne is made and how they carbonate it. Now this is an abroad blog not a champagne blog, so forgive me if I don't take you through the elaborate process of champagne-making.
We then turn a corner and standing there just chilling in the middle of the tunnel are two massive bottles of champagne, one of the biggest sizes possible. The Melichizedek. 30 liters of champagne. My head spins just at thought.
After taking this gem of a picture, we continue into the storage tunnels of the champagne house where the bottle are stored. Here sediment from the grapes gather at the bottom of the bottle to be removed later before being put into production. BAM. CHAMPAGNE FACT. Through a caged area, we see the oldest and first bottle of champagne the house has ever made, held here as kind of a monument to what G.H. Mumm has become.
After walking through all these tunnels, my mind starts to get foggy again. All of the things about champagne were interesting and everything, but I need some food or a seat or something. We go up to ground level and are greeted by a welcome sight.
YAHTZEE!!
It's not exactly food, but ya know, ya gotta take what ya get. And I take a few. The champagne is absolutely fantastic. Chilled to a perfect temperature and just bubbly enough to pleasantly tickle your nose without being overwhelming. I enjoy the champagne so much that I decide to take some artsy photos.
By now though my stomach is growling and I'm ready for something that can give me a bit more satisfaction than alcohol. The trip we went on included a lunch at this little restaurant just down the street from G.H. Mumm Champagne House. Now when I think of "lunch" I think of something like a sandwich, a side, and possibly a dessert. What we got was a 6 course meal that consisted of so many different kinds of French dishes, it was almost difficult for me to finish. And that's saying something since I can pretty much take down a Thanksgiving meal like it's a salad. There was a duck salad, some kind of strawberry sorbet mixed with a champagne liqueur, this melt-in-your-mouth chicken doused in a champagne cream sauce, a chevre cheese block salad, and this pink block of something that had the consistency between cake and ice cream, if that makes any sense. All with continuous bottles of wine being brought to us as soon as the last red drop of the previous bottle fell into a glass. I felt like a king.
Feeling like we could hibernate for the rest of the winter, we get back on the bus and continue on to the next champagne house, a much smaller, family-run business led by this little old French man who spoke no English whatsoever.
But don't let his being old, short, and chubby fool you. The guy was a creeper extraordinaire. He must've thought that we were all stereotypical American kids who didn't know a single word of French. Au contraire Monsieur Creepy, but as you mutter to your friend that there are a lot of pretty girls in this group and you wouldn't mind having them work for you during the summer, I can completely understand the hysterical French phrases coming out of your mouth. All I can do is chuckle to myself.
After a quick little tour of his small champagne-making operation, he and his wife bring out glasses for us and begin popping bottles like nobody's business. The buzz from lunch has slightly worn off, so I accept a few glasses. Monsieur Creepy's champagne is even more enjoyable than G.H. Mumm's. Achieving the perfect balance of lightness and body, and carbonation. I guess you'll get that when you're in the region where champagne was invented.
In no time whatsoever, the bottles are empty, as are everyone's glasses. We load up the buses and make our way back to Paris, our stomachs much more content than they were at the start of the journey. The bus ride, however, passes in a similar fashion as the first. With a through exploration of the inside of my eyelids. I wake up to see a brightly lit Eiffel Tower glistening with its flashing lights as if to welcome us back home. Okay France, you've pulled out the stops today.
We drag ourselves onto the metro, back to our apartment, and collapse onto the couch ready to get some major shut-eye. We wouldn't be given such a gift. Lindsey and Julie rush into the apartment urging us to go out with them. Being that it's their last night in Paris, we oblige. The night passes in a blur, not from reveling, but from sheer exhaustion. A few hours pass and we finally get to jump into our beds and pass out from an awesome trip.
But the weekend wasn't over yet.
End of Part 2
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