Beaujolais Wine Region
Day 6
We have a lot of stops in between getting to our next
“sleeping,” destination (as one can imagine, traveling by coach literally
across Europe) Contiki has done a really
great job of almost always putting a place of interest that isn’t necessarily a
place you want to spend all day, but would like to see for an hour or two. The town of Fountainbleu was that place on
this leg of the journey. It was a somewhat crummy day and a good deal of people
were not feeling so hot after the wild night out at Scully’s in Paris
(remember, I opted out of this), so getting off the coach and getting some fresh
air was nice. The town was very nice,
but we encountered Zac’s first, “just around the corner,” situation, when he
swore the supermarket/clothing store was just around the corner, which was
actually a bit more like a 20 min walk.
Not a big deal until we were walking back….but I’ll get to that. I took money out at the cash machine (thank
god I did, but I will also get to that later on) and found the store. I grabbed some headphones (I packed mine in
my bag in the bottom of the coach), an European hairdryer, wrapping paper &
a bow (for the “P” party, which I decided to go as a present) and some food
items including TUC crackers, which become a virtual food group to the group as
the tour continued, and Babybel cheese (forgetting there as a strict NO DAIRY or
hot food rule on the coach). Now, this
was a 50 minute stop, take out the 40 minute commute to and from the store, 10
minutes at the cash machine and you find everyone, including the hung over
people, RUNNING to the coach. I got
there with 4 minutes to spare (I was breathing so hard I was seeing
stars). A few people were a bit late and
Zac had to put on his serious cap and reprimand us for being late. Apparently a few minutes off schedule is a
serious deal, so it was a bit of a quieter bus ride the rest of the way.
Day 6 (cont'd)
We arrived at the Chateau in the Beaujolais wine region mid
afternoon and as soon as we unloaded our bags off the coach, ran up to the 3rd
story where our rooms were, we were to report back downstairs to embark on our
winetasting! 5 minutes into this place
and we are drinking, hells yes. I
certainly needed a drink after seeing how tiny the room I was sharing with
Ellie, Rachel and Kate was. Kate and I
were stuck on the top bunks in a room that barely held our suitcases! “You are in France, in the wine countryside,
stop complaining,” I kept saying over and over in my head. We had a locked door in our room that hid the
stairwell that lead to the top of the Chateau, I swore we were going to break
into, but being we had to put our suitcases in front of it and Contiki (who
owned the Chateau), would know it was us, we didn’t end up doing it. The wine tasting was held in the Beaujolais
winery that was literally just around the corner from us (not one of Zac’s
“corners”). We were there with another
group and the guys that were the site reps gave us a quick rundown on the
tradition and romance that is involved with growing and harvesting the grapes
(one of them used George’s balls as an example of how to harvest the
grapes). We learned the proper way to
see, smell and taste the wine (I thought Rachel was going to “spew” as she
says, because she was STILL feeling the effects from the night before). They told us the great deals there were on
the bottles starting at around 5€ and the most expensive being around 9€. This basically meant we were all getting
crunk. I was assigned as a “cookie,” for
the stay meaning I went to all meals about 15 minutes early, set the tables and
serve everyone. No problem. Some people were assigned as “dishies,” which
meant you had to pick up after everyone, so I was happy with my title. After dinner, we hung out for a bit, just
relaxing and I went down to use the Internet.
I knew I needed to email Bank of America about them not sending me my bankcard
and seeing if they would just send it over to Europe. That ended up being, by far, one of the
biggest mistakes ever. I headed back up
to my room and went to bed.
Day 7
The next morning, we had breakfast (I didn’t realize cookies did
breakfast as well and missed it), met the dog of the house and prepared for our
picnic “walk.” I put the “walk,” in
quotations because it was a F-ing picnic HIKE!
We took our 20 pound picnic basket and head up the mountain with a very
vague map (that only had "landmarks" on it) and a sheepdog that we all, for some reason, thought was Lassie,
leading us to the perfect picnic patch.
I was dead last walking, being I was prepared for a walk in a halter top
and hadn’t quite mentally prepared myself for a hike. I finally caught up with the whole group, when
(thank GOD) I was at the top of the hill in town and they were all heading BACK
up because they had gone the wrong way.
Eureka, at least it looked like I planned to be slow as fuck. We headed on the right direction and Rachel
and I got a little separated from the group, by no more than 4 or 5
minutes. Apparently that and a fork in
the road was enough for us to become COMPLETELY left by our group (&
basket) and ended up with the other tour that was staying at the chateau that
night. Eh, a mostly cute, funny
Australian boy group…not like it was the absolute end of the world. There were about 15 of us and one
basket. Do the math. At this point Rachel and I were just trying
to find our group, with the weather changing from cold rain to hot humidity
literally by the minutes. The view was
breathtaking, but the giant thunderhead loaming over the mountain was enough to
bring us back to earth and try to figure out a way just to get back to the
Chateau. We made that decision literally
on the top of the mountain.
Literally. We left the other tour
group (another reason was there was a particular girl on our group that was a
bit off and sometimes quite rude, that decided to school one of the guys, who
was holding the basket this entire time without complaining and smoking, on the
harmfulness of smoking…um we don’t claim her) and headed back to the
Chateau. At the bottom of the
hill/mountain back in the town, we decided that we may just find the group at
the Pub. We were right. We ate and drank and was once again
marry. Emma, of course, had made buddies
with the other group, who turned out to be a pretty funny bunch. We strolled leisurely back to the Chateau, only stopping to check out some goats and chickens that were making a racket on the side of the road. I really needed some animals in my life. We headed up to eat dinner, relax and get
ready for our “P party,” which with the day being the way it was, was already
set to be a crazy night. Ellie and I
decided to share a bottle of sparkling wine, which we quickly drank at dinner
and got another one for our “getting ready” process. Emma had made the mistake of telling everyone
that she loves doing hair and curling it and everything, so she had a line of
girls, including me, to “do up,” for the evening. She didn’t complain though. I drunkingly wrapped myself up in my gift
wrapping paper, and literally as I was tapping myself up, forgot that I needed
to use the ladies room. I thought I was
being very meticulous, just tearing enough of the paper to get my shorts down,
but as the photos show, I was not as suave as I thought. We took pictures by sunset outside with all
the Parisians, PJ’s, pink, purple and who the heck knows what else. I was waiting around for the party to begin
when someone says, “Lets go down to the Cave.”
Um, cave? What the hell is
that? Then (from my semi blurry memory)
a guy pushes open, what I thought was a wall and leads us down a sketchy ass
staircase to a dungeon looking club. I
think this is the first moment any of us thought, “Shit’s getting Cray,” which
became a slogan of our group (well at least between me and some of the
girls). The night was a blur of
“strawpedos,” in which you put a straw in a Smirnoff ice (yes, I know…an Ice)
and turn it upside down and it is supposed to just go straight down your
throat, but everyone I saw that did it, including me, just spilled it all over
ourselves. I think this was a trick the chateau
reps like to play on the tours, to make them look stupid and get drunk as
shit. Zac was a pretty pink princess
prostitute or something. Mari from the
kitchen area was there and she was super fun.
Day 8
The night was hazy and needless to say, in the morning, I did not make
it to breakfast to be a cookie or eat. I
was quite happy to say goodbye to the Chateau…so happy I was moving too quickly
to get on the coach, lost my footing on the slick ground and slipped pretty
much under the coach. I wasn’t bruised
(except my ego a bit), but my toe was busted up a bit and my entire ass was
covered in mud.
Au Revoir France. Hola Barcelona!
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