Northern Hemisphere 2006 - Part 3 - Troyes, Champagne

After grungy, lovely Paris (a taste, un peu, it's not enough!) we headed on the train out to the East, away from the sea, away from the charm of Paris which we had barely scratched-and-sniffed.

We said goodbye to Hotel Regent, and scored a friendly, direct, and cheap cab to the railway station!!! Yes, I know, we all win the lottery sometime. Noni and I were on our own after Michael's journey would take him over to another cosmo metro centre, New York. I had introduced him to the aural madness and joys of Jamie Lidell and Michael was going to be lucky enough to catch him in concert over there...

So, into the train station and onto our train, which was a rather formal affair, with special booth seats, and that wonderful train announcement system sold and maintained by Shit PA dot com, but we settled in our seats finally and enjoyed the high speed trip out east. We filmed blurry racing bushes and farmhouses, practiced some more Francaise, and ate our hotel food booty stash from breakfast.

Troyes approached fast, and we had a while before the bus left for Gye sur Seine, so we headed off in search of. Something. The bookshop (Librarie) we stumbled across was just surreal and rustic, and though the price was right, the range of books were just all wrong. We couldn't find anything in French at the right level of informative, twee, or artsy-fartsy... Finally I found a book of Kafka letters, and tried to engage the owner in polite chat, which was impeded by the dialect of Troyes, and his lack of English. Suddenly the prospect of a wedding full of non english speakers wasn't looking appealing...

After almost missing our bus writing postcards and eating extravagant and silly ice-cream concoctions at the Crocodile Cafe, we were en route to Champagne. The bus slowed to a jog at one stage when we were stuck behind a cyclist with iPod firmly entrenched in ears, who did not hear the bus up his derriere for a kilometre! The countryside got lovely with sunflowers and
vines starting to appear. I felt at home when we went past the big Cork, very Australian to have a Big Champers Cork, I thought.

So we arrived at the little villiage Gye sur Seine, which was full of flowers and streets with the same name - Rue des Vignes, Rue des Vannes, easy to get lost! We were well met off the bus by Arielle, Jem, parents and Bogart, the ubiquitous collie cross dog of the happy couple. In fact Bogart would be jealous unless I referred to them as the happy trio. His presence would be felt in the week to come as he stamped his belonging on all ceremonies and gatherings.

It's funny when you travel and see your friends and family, often they seem much more grown-up, responsible but in a good way.

So we continued the invasion of Jem and Arielle's house, which was becoming very Aussie-fied. The couple somehow welcomed us all and there were always croissants hot, cheeses stinky, and/or beers cold, depending on the position of the sun around the sky.

My sis, Jodie, was so happy her little bro was tying the knot, and was in great mood. Actually it was probably a procrastination tactic from her PhD come to think of it... (heh heh) and we stayed around the house chatting on the first afternoon, catching up. Suddenly we were accosted by a wizened and homely old visitor, a hugely enthusiastic French man who came trundling up to the door looking for... anyone.... We would do, it seemed, as he put arms around our shoulders and spoke in that throaty dialect again - oh dear... What is he saying, something about a letter... he smells like he's been drinking... yes, frere, et soeur de Jem... oui, ah, the hugs increased, and we were entrusted with some sort of letter for him. Suddenly after bouts of laughter and lots of physical contact, he headed off, and we embarrasingly realised we had had a visit from the priest!

He'd left some sort of acceptance from the Catholic diocese in the region, and we hoped he would be as good value during the ceremony. We weren't disappointed.

How could we not be charmed by the region, Arielle's home, simple life, shops shut for siestas in the afternoon, flowers seemed to grow more colours there, trout fisherman stood in the Seine, the Town Hall and Church had been standing for longer than our country had been settled by whiteys, and there was Champagne to go round.