Bubbly

I spent last week with our latest visitor, Ghada Abdallah, who was a friend and roommate of mine at Mt. Allison University. This is only the second time I have seen her since 1999, the year we graduated, but once we were together in Paris it was like old times. We spent a few days in Paris together, then she joined me in the south of France for two nights. While in Paris I saw many of the top sights that I had not yet done: the Louvre, Orsay museum, and a Seine boat cruise. It was wonderful!

Gilles joined us for one day en route from Gabon back to Pau. For that day, we hopped on a high-speed train for a daytrip to Reims, the largest town in the Champagne region. We toured two champagne houses, Pommery and Martel. They were the coolest wine tours we have ever done. Gilles and I love champagne. We have previously taken two champagne classes in Calgary and already knew a lot of its tedious production, but seeing it first-hand in Reims was very special. Champagne is stored in dark, cool caves about 30 metres below ground. Most of these caves were dug by Romans, so have existed for almost 2,000 years. Pommery itself has about 30 km of caves! The wine tours took place in these ancient caves…it was quite eerie. As an added bonus, Pommery was featuring contemporary art in their caves; when we weren’t walking by riddling racks filled with champagne bottles, we were looking at art, including an installation of live birds making music by landing on electric guitars plugged into amps. Trippy!