Friday Flashback: 2007 European Vacation Part 1, The Champagne Region of France
Those of you that read
The Big Finn's Big Blog know that my wife and I vacationed with the TBFs this past May. Although TBF has already blogged about it, I have yet to post my take on that experience...so here we go!
We departed from Chicago on the afternoon of May 16th and landed in Basel the next day at around noon. The TBFs picked us up at the airport, dropped some of our bags at their house and soon we were on the road headed for the Champagne region of France.
I am not at all at ease with air travel, so consequently I do not sleep while flying. My wife does a bit better with air travel and will nap occasionally while we fly. As a result of 13 hours of air travel with little sleep, we both were pretty tired during the 4 hour plus drive to France. As you can see from the above picture, Mrs. Colon Blow finally gave into sleep while in the car by diving into a pile of pillows and blankets.
The next day we drove into Epernay, and toured the Moet Chandon facility. I really did not know what to expect when we toured the grounds. I guess in my mind I was thinking that it would look much like an assembly line plant, similar to a beer brewery.
I was amazed by the network of underground tunnels and cellars under the facility and the surrounding streets filled with thousands of bottles of champagne! I never imagined that the process of making champagne was so slow, manual and very old world.
That same day we walked through the vineyards surrounding Epernay. We found the scenery and surroundings to be quite beautiful and serene.
The next day, we traveled to Reims to visit and tour the Pommery champagne house. We experienced much of the same in terms of the tunnels and cellars, but this house made it a point to place some very interesting art and lighting throughout the cellars which made the tour a very visually stimulating experience.
Finally, I must mention the hotel that we stayed in during this part of the vacation. The
Hostellerie La Briqueterie was nice enough, although I would not give it high marks for the room we stayed in or for the aloof service that we received from almost the entire hotel staff with the exception of the night desk manager. I did enjoy the outside garden and regret that we did not spend more time in it while we were there.
In summary, we had an interesting and enjoyable time vacationing in the Champagne region of France. I do not feel it was a good enough experience to justify a return visit in my lifetime, but I am glad to have experienced it and I am left with some very good memories from the trip.
Nespresso Espresso!
Vacations are full of special experiences, memories and even sensory sensations. For the past few years, we have been vacationing with my sister and her husband (
The TBFs) in Switzerland. One of the sensory sensations that always greets me when we wake up each morning at their home is the coffee that they make. It is very different than what I make at home and it is one of the ways that I finally come to realize that I am truly on vacation. The coffee that they make is more espresso tasting than what I brew at home. In previous years, they would brew it by using a
Jura coffee maker. They have recently replaced it with a
Nespresso machine. We were so impressed with how easy it was to use, we bought one last Sunday at
Williams-Sonoma when we were out shopping with my sister (see my previous post). We fired it up today and enjoyed our first Nespresso coffee at our house!
Mind you, I will never give up my Starbucks coffee. However, it will be nice to have a Nespresso now and then while pretending I am vacationing in Europe. Nespresso, take me away!
A Weekend At Chez Renee
I could blog about the last two weeks in May, describing our vacation with the
TBFs (my sister and brother-in-law) in Switzerland, France and England, but I will save that for another time. When we departed Basel the morning of May 30th for home, my sister also left later that same day for a business trip in the U.S. When she completed her business last Friday, she traveled to Chicago to spend the weekend with us.
This is the first time that my sister has spent an entire weekend with us at our house, which she has named "Chez Renee". She usually stays at our mother's condo, which we have now dubbed "Chateau Jo". My sister came in late that Friday night, so rather than go out to dinner, we stayed in and snacked on assorted appetizers that my wife put together and drank some wine (of course).
Those of you that have read my blog for awhile (and as we all know, it would only take about 10 minutes to read every one of my posts) knows that my wife and I run the food pantry at our parish. This past Saturday was a distribution day for our food pantry and my sister generously offered to go with us and help with the volunteer work (she probably also wanted to see for herself that which is such a big part of our lives).
When she got to the food pantry, she decided to help out by making the candy bags we give to the children that come to the food pantry with their parents. She came up with a special mix of candy to put into the bags. I tried to mimic this mix and help her, but due to my lack of patience I soon gave up and let her handle it herself. She met all of our regular volunteers and it was obvious that they enjoyed meeting and talking with her.
One of the best stories I can relate from my sister's visit to the food pantry involves some fresh rhubarb that was grown and donated by one of our parishioners. This is not the first time that this particular parishioner has donated rhubarb from her garden to our food pantry and we always find it difficult to persuade any of the families to take it. This is mainly due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the families that come to our food pantry are Hispanic and have no idea what rhubarb is! Actually, I know what it is and don't want it either. My sister noticed that one of our volunteers was unsuccessfully trying to give one of our families some rhubarb. My sister quickly intervened and demonstrated how to peel and clean the rhubarb and suggested a quick recipe on how to prepare it. The woman clearly was interested as a result of this explanation and accepted the rhubarb. We were all amazed at how easily my sister accomplished this feat. Maybe she should be in marketing/sales at her company instead of what she is doing now!
That evening, Mom visited and we stayed home and barbecued instead of going out for dinner. We cooked nothing elaborate, just burgers, chicken and vegetables on the grill.
The next day, my wife had a bridal shower to attend, so my sister and I met our mother for lunch and did a little shopping. After that, we just went back to the house and relaxed for the rest of the day.
The next morning, Mrs. TBF left for New Jersey, vowing to stay again with us at "Chez Renee" next time she is in town. We hope so. We enjoyed having her with us and missed her as soon as she departed.
To Blog Or Not To Blog...
...that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of fellow bloggers by remaining silent or to take keyboard in hand against a sea of blogger comments and by posting, end them?"
Methinks I will post!
