we are heading to champagne to meet p’s parents. they belong to a wine group which has organized a tasting out there. we took an early train, and got a cabin to ride in. we thought we had it to ourselves until the last minute when a lady in her 60's joined us. we started chatting. she was originally from marseille. i decided that this was an opportunity to practice my french so we chatted for the whole trip. we talked lots of “lady-chat”, which i knew would be boring to p, but i was working hard to keep up the conversation. p would take out his book and start reading and she would say “oh, monsieur is very serious...” the trip was very fast – about an hour and a half. p’s parents picked us up from the station and took us to the hotel. jj who had gotten up much earlier than would have been natural for her, lay down and took a nap. then we went off to the event – starting with champagne, then continuing with wine tastings, lunch and more tastings. all the attendees were english who drove over specifically for the event. the champagne was nice and at very good price of 14 E/bottle, so we bought some. then we went looking for the champagne bar that we had come to 15 years earlier. it was no longer there, so we headed back to the hotel for dinner. it was actually quite good except for the wedding party who brought a marching band into the hotel. that was a bit loud and weird.
jj was doing her homework and showed us some of the questions in her french book:
Choose the dishes that one should eat with the following:
1) a good red wine: a steak, chocolate croissant, oysters, lamb chop or camembert cheese
2) a good white wine: roast chicken, sole, scallops, saucisson, raisin pastry
3) an espresso: ham, bread and butter, mussels, chocolate cake, croissant, ice cream, champagne
knowing what to eat with wine and coffee is considered part of the basic education in france!
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