Reims

Yesterday I left Paris to go to Reims. When I looked at a train schedule, I had my hopes of traveling around France dashed by realizing the TGV actually takes about 8 hours for most of the trips! So I'm just heading east at this point, and tomorrow I'll go to Strasbourg, where there is an organ that Mozart played upon.

Reims is in the Champagne region; later today I'm going to visit a champagne cave. It also seems to be a big beer brewing town. I ate dinner last night at Les 3 Brasseurs, which is a microbrewery. Their beer isn't outstanding by the standards of American microbrewing, but it is a worthy effort. The food was the best (and most decadent) I've had yet in France: I had a "Welsh", which it turns out is Welsh rarebit on bread with ham and an egg!

Reims also has a gigantic beautiful cathedral. It's without doubt the best church I've seen yet. I think you could probably line up my apartment structure 3 times and fit it inside this church with plenty of spare room (and more room on top!)

I really prefer the small towns to Paris. They're cleaner, a bit cheaper, the people are much nicer, and they're less touristy. And yet all the good points of Paris are still here: French tradition, beautiful architecture, etc.

I thought I'd have more time to blog when I got done with the academy, but it turns out that being a tourist is just as busy! You really have to fit in as much sight-seeing and activities as possible. So I'll have more pictures eventually, but for now I just don't have the time (or energy) to edit and upload them - maybe I can take care of that on the train tomorrow.