In other news, this morning I got my schedule for my upcoming class, ‘Strategic Marketing’. For the next two weeks, I have classes 9am-4pm Monday to Wednesday and 9am-noon Thursdays and Fridays.

I mean, I heard the classes were easy here, but I never expected this! First thing Jordan and I did when we saw this is head to the train station to book an earlier train to Oktoberfest. We’re now going to be in Munich from Oct.2nd-6th. We can’t wait!

We’ve also decided to go to Venice, Italy to recuperate after Munich. The hotel we booked through Hotwire for Venice is called Hotel Riviera Venice Italy. It looks pretty nice! We just hope the weather is nice in October.

Anyhoo, those are the upcoming adventures, but for now, I have to keep reminding myself that I came here for school…which starts Thursday with two Welcome Days. Jordan’s also decided to do some studying of his own over the next two weeks. He plans to learn German. Wish him luck!

Like I mentioned in the last post, we really enjoyed Paris. Heck, who am I kidding, we loved it. There’s a vibe in that city that just makes you want to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and scream “Baguette!”

We first arrived on the 8^th around 1pm, which was about an hour later than scheduled because there was a ‘panne d’électricité’ (electrical outage) when the train was half-way to Paris. This worked out for the best thought because our check-in wasn’t until 3pm. We booked our hotel through Hotwire because we heard raving reviews about this website before we left for France. Now, I love this website too. The price is great, and I actually enjoy not knowing where we’ll be staying until we pay…it created a bit of excitement!

The hotel in Paris definitely did not get great reviews on sites like TripAdvisor and Expedia, so we were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It had everything we needed and for $59/night, we couldn’t complain! The location was the best part: right by a main train/metro station.

Day 1: We just walked around Rue La Fayette where I discovered some good shopping. At night, we asked the concierge where we should go to for some good nightlife. He didn’t even think twice before saying St. Michel’s by the Notre Dame Cathedral. There were a bunch of restaurants down these little alleys where employees were doing their best to get people into their restaurant. The guy that got our attention offered us free ‘apéritif’ (pre-dinner drink) at a Greek restaurant that had a two-person band playing authentic Greek music and an accompanying dancer. Pretty entertaining!

Day 2: The morning’s mission was to check out the Louvre. We decided to spend the 6 euros on a headset that gave us a guided tour. Definitely something we would recommend to others! There were many tours to choose from, all very interesting and the accompanying music really created a nice ambiance. After seeing less than ¼ of the museum (2 hours), we left to go meet up with Carlene on Champs-Elysées. We were excited to meet up with her because she lived in Paris for six months last year, and generally just very excited to meet up with a fellow Prairie Dog She answered our numerous questions about French culture that we had been waiting to ask another Canadian and then she showed us an area of Paris called ‘Le Marais’. It’s fantastic! There were many great vintage stores and cool shops for many blocks. She brought us to a place called ‘L’as du falafel’, which has celebrity customers that include Lenny Kravitz and, of course, Celine Dion! The food was delicious. Then we went on a little bar-hoping escapade.

Day 3: We shopped in ‘Le Marais’ area and then met up with Carlene at Tribeca, a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. After supper, we bought a bottle of wine and chocolate and headed straight to a park in front of the Eiffel Tower. So many people were there! Everyone was doing the same, sipping on wine with good friends. And if anyone didn’t think to bring some vino, there were homeless people that had bottles on hand…but for the price of at least 10 euros, I don’t think they had many sales. When time was running short with the Eiffel Tower closing within the hour, we said aurevoir to Carlene and headed up the Eiffel Tower. The view was breathtaking! We didn’t see any proposals that night, but apparently you can catch at least a few in the daytime, so maybe I’ll see one on our next visit.

Day 4: After checking-out of our hotel, and before heading back to Reims, we had to do one more thing: Arc de Triomphe. Carlene had mentioned how the view from the top was incredible…and it was! I think I liked it better than the Eiffel Tower view because you actually see the Eiffel Tower in the Paris landscape. Really beautiful.

Warning: The stairs going up to the Arc de Triomph WILL make you dizzy.

I can’t believe we’ve been in France for almost two weeks. Time has flown by! We just got back from Paris yesterday and we absolutely LOVED that city. That can’t be a surprise though. I think it’s in big part thanks to Carlene who showed us around for a few days; we discovered a bunch of hidden gems that don’t scream ‘Tourist’ and learnt a bunch of interesting tidbits. So here is a special ‘Merci!’ to Carlene!

Before I talk about our Paris adventure, I want to go back to our arrival and our first week in Reims.

Sept. 1-8, 2009

Jordan explained the stressful arrival, so I won’t recap that part, but I have to rewind to the plane ride. It was fantastic! It made me want to travel overseas on a regular basis. The second we sat down, we got wine and our meal (I got chicken, rice, bun and chocolate mousse desert) and it was delicious! I couldn’t sleep so I watched a few movies and the next thing I knew, they announce that they will be serving a little breakfast because we land in less than an hour. I couldn’t believe we were almost there! I don’t know why but I imagined it would feel like a never ending trip because you just want to get there already. Then voila! Bienvenue à Paris. A quick walk by customs who stamp my passport without any questions and there we are in the train on our way to Reims. Well, not really, but you get the idea. If Jordan’s post about our Metro/Train experience taught me anything, it’s to pack LIGHT and if you can’t because of the duration of your stay, then spend the money on a cab/shuttle to get to your connection.

Our first week in Reims consisted of scoping out our new surroundings. We found some great little grocery stores, bakeries, butcher shops. It’s immediately evident how much pride they have in eating well and eating local food. We also find an area that reminds us of the Byward Market on Place Drouet D’Erlon – there is an abundance of restaurants and brasseries (pub). It’s also a big tourist stop and one of the only places we’ve we heard people speaking English and many other languages apart from French. Our friendly waiter one night informed us the following useful tidbits:

• If you want to see the menu, ask to see ‘la carte’
• If you want water, ask for ‘une carafe d’eau’
• If you are ready for the bill, ask for ‘l’addition’ (I had said ‘la facture’)

He was a really friend guy, and the second he heard my accent, he said it reminded him of Celine Dion. I’ve been told that numerous times since then – way to be Celine!

We also found out on our first few days here that there are a bunch of markets around the city where every few days local farmers in the region come to sell their fruit/vegetables/cheese/meat/etc. You can imagine how happy we were to find out that the biggest market in Reims is a two minute walk from our place! Every Saturday from 6am to 1pm. It’s already become part of our routine! The first Saturday we went, I observed how local residents talked to the farmers (most will just say how much they want in kilograms) and then I decided it was my turn. So I approach a farmer who has good lookin’ potatoes.

Me: ‘Bonjour Monsieur, j’aimerais trios patates rouges s’il vous plaît.’

Farmer : (giggling) ‘Pardon?’

I then realize how ridiculous my French slang must sound to him…what’s a ‘patate’??

Me: ‘Oh! Désolé, j’aimerais trios pommes de terre rouge s’il vous plaît.’

Farmer : (still giggling) ‘D’accord!’

I am proud to say we went to the market today and they understood every word I said

So after familiarizing ourselves with the city’s downtown area, we decide that it’s time to check out one of the local ‘Maison de Champagne’ called Pommery. After all, we are in Champagne country! This was such a cool place to visit. Very informative. We learnt about the history of Champagne and how they make Champagne. Check out the pics of our visit for more info. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without Champagne tasting and needless to say, it was delicious! Now, I have to try to figure out how to safely bring a few bottles home.

That’s all for me for now! I promise we’ll update more often to prevent such long posts. You don’t have time to read all of this…do you?! I will post about Paris tomorrow.

Bonne nuit!

Welcome to our little travel journal – isn’t it cute?!   First off I just wanted to thank people for the votes on domains.  It was a toss up!  We were debating to go with www.wheninfrance.ca (Andree’s choice),  www.frantastic.ca (Jordan’s choice) or www.overseaing.com (Jordan’s choice).   Since wheninfrance.ca is something Andree was more-so leaning towards, I told her it would only be fair if she let our first post title be a play on words from a Madonna song.  There.  Fair.

Although our flight to Paris was awesome, everything that happened next was purely frustrating.  We got on the Metro in the Paris airport to make a few connections.  We were frequently asking people for directions and despite all rumors about French people being arseholes, people were extremely friendly to us.

Part of the process of getting on the Metro is that you pass your ticket into this slot and then sliding doors open for you to pass through.  Both Andree each had about 4 pieces of luggage, so passing through these sliding doors quickly was not the easiest task.   I had to throw my guitar to Andree when the sliding doors opened then had to pass through with my sumo size luggage bag.  Looks like someone forgot to butter up the sides, because I got stuck and the doors closed on me – I squirmed quite a bit to break free.

We eventually got to the place where we needed to take the train to Reims.  We waited a few hours before boarding – got some baguette and some …water (I know most of you were thinking wine).  Once we boarded the train there was little room for our mass amount of luggage but we made it work.  As soon as the train started moving I felt nautious and it didn’t stop until we got there.  I had never been so close to puking.  I just kept telling myself “Not here, not now” – plus the French are extremely clean people – I don’t think they’d appreciate it if I vomited all over their train.

We got off the train and walked around aimlessly in the rain to try and find our place.  Finally, after half an hour, we got there.   The room is pretty small.  In the one room you have you TV, internet, double bed (2 single beds pushed together), a fridge, hot plate, microwave and sink – not bad.   I’m sure things will get better from here!