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Published: January 7th 2013
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Notre Dame
We went to Notre Dame but weren't able to fully enjoy the stained glass windows since it was dark The drive to Reims was a little less than 2 hours. I’m still getting used to seeing the GPS read speeds in km/hour and the French highways. The French highways are very nice but they are not built by the government. They are owned and built by companies and as such, the tolls are pretty expensive, 18 to 22 euros. Everyone here drives smaller cars than in the US and the city driving is very aggressive and the city roads are very tiny. I’ve been lucky enough to not need to drive yet since I did all the driving in the US.
The first thing that we did once we arrived in Reims was to check in to the hostel. We had looked at the hostel the previous night and were considering booking it online but we thought that it might be less expensive to reserve it after we showed up. We were INCORRECT. For anyone reading this, it is less expensive to reserve a room on the website hostelworld.com than to show up and ask for a room. It was only a few euros more expensive but we won’t make the same mistake twice. Howdy y’all this ya boy
Clovis
Clovis, the first king of France, was crowned here c-money. I ain’t gon’ play but Reims be triflin’. (I put that in because Lise was just complimenting me on my grammar.)
The hostel was nice but small. The bathrooms had toilet paper in them which Lise said she was unsure about, but the toilets don’t have toilet seats on top. The room always has at least one bed and a second bed can be deployed. The way the hostels function is by making you pay for a 2 person room regardless of being alone or in a group. We asked the guy at the front desk for directions and he told us which way to go in order to get to the Christmas market and to get to the Notre Dame cathedral.
We went on our way and arrived at the Christmas market fairly quickly. We decided that since businesses close earlier in France, we would check out the cathedral and anything else we could before checking out the markets since they closed later. We made our way to the Notre Dame castle and it was impressive! Some serious gothic architecture going on here. This was the castle where Clovis was crowned as the first king of
Christmas Market Booth
This is what a typical christmas market booth looks like a united France so it’s pretty important. It was fairly dark and so we decided to come back to visit the next day since we couldn’t really appreciate all the stained glass windows. We checked what times mass were the next day since we wanted to visit on a Sunday and went on our way.
The next place we visited was la musée des beaux-arts (Museum of Fine arts). We entered at 5:30 and it closed at 6 so were kind of in a hurry. Lise had told me to bring my student ID with me because sometimes students get discounts and she was right in this case. We got into the museum for free because we both had our student IDs.
Reims is in a region of France called Champagne. Every wine that is called champagne is made in the Champagne region and everything else is not allowed to call itself champagne. As you can tell, the region is pretty proud of making champagne. Much of the museum was dedicated to art involving champagne. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures and we were in a hurry so I can’t be too descriptive of the museum.
Hermit Crabs
There was a vendor selling custom painted hermit crab shells After the museum we went directly to the Christmas market. Christmas markets are huge areas where there are tons of small kiosks with vendors selling their stuff. It is common to drink hot wine and eat roasted chestnuts while browsing the Christmas markets. Lise bought some vin chaud (hot wine) and I didn’t really like it. There were all kinds of goods being sold at the Christmas markets but I’ll hit on the highlights. There was a vendor that sold finger puppets, and I bought some for Lise’s Dad as well as my family. There was a guy selling individually decorated hermit crab shells and his kiosk had the largest crowd around it. There were a number of kiosks selling Foie Gras, a duck liver delicacy of France (illegal in the US). There were vendors selling a variety of French cheeses. The French are very good at putting their food on display and making it look appealing.
Something that is very commonly sold at Christmas markets is nativity scene figurines. They range from 2cm-10cm in height. Many French families have their own nativity scene at their house, regardless of believing in Christianity or not. Prior to Christmas
Terrifying clowns
There were these terrifying animated clowns as an exhibit for kids day, Jesus is absent from the scene but there is a pregnant Mary figurine. On Christmas day the pregnant Mary figurine is removed and replaced with a non-pregnant Mary and a Jesus figurine. Churches that have their own nativity scene do the same thing and they show the three wise men gradually approaching after Christmas and into the new year, usually arriving at the scene on January 6
th (called the epiphany).
There was a random bagpipe parade of some kind that I caught on video that included a guy playing bagpipes, people walking on stilts, and girls dressed up and twirling in their pretty dresses. There was also this incredibly creepy moving puppet expo near the Christmas market that I took a video of and will upload if I have time. After the market we went to a place that was very highly rated on Tripadvisor for eating but it was only OK and Lise still wasn’t feeling 100%! (MISSING)Quote of the day happened on the way back home: “I am NOT gonna throw up a 16 euro meal!”- Lise. Afterwards we went back to the hostel and went to bed. Lise didn’t sleep well because the blankets were
On display
The markets do a really good job of displaying their goodies itchy and she dreamed there were insects crawling on her.
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