A visit from a friend

This past week I had a friend, Jesse from UCD that was here visiting me. He actually is keeping a blog like I am about his three weeks tour in Europe. I am adding a link to his blog because it is in a way about me and Jeremie. I will post some other pictures to go along with it.

http://3countries3weeks.blogspot.com

Here is a picture of Jesse and me at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte.



Jeremie and me at Smith HLF.



Jeremie in the cellar of SHLF.



We took Jesse out to a dinner at a favorite of any French person. It's a restaurant that is odd in the sense that they only have one option, but people line up because it is always the same, and always good. It is called L'Entrecote, named for a cut of beef that is tender, a center fillet. They have a "secret sauce" that they put on the steak that the French just adore. We ended up taking a friend of Jeremie and mine with us, she was REALLY excited about going, because there is always a line, and when I say always I mean every day, rain or shine.



This is a different chateau we visited and tasted at, it's a much smaller production as well as being lesser well known, but it is also a "grand cru" from the graves region, but they make really really good wine.




Next we have David, who will next week in Bordeaux, if he isn't having too much fun traveling around. He sent me an email today that he might extend! Which is great! Much love to all.

Champagne region anyone?

Since David and I have spent a fair amount of time in Paris, I wanted to do something really cool. My choice was tasting champagne. It worked out well because friends of mine and Jeremie just had their first baby girl, named Beatrice. She was born 8 days ago. We were the first friends to see her. We started off the morning seeing the famous Cathedral with its wonderful stained glass windows, which did not come out very well in pictures....



After we headed to the first place to taste at GH Mumm, the real Mumm as the french would tell you....


They store all the Champagne in caves that are about 14 meters underground, it was very refreshing but very dark. This picture has racks of champagne bottles which are angled downward to make the sediment fall to the neck and then they perform the corking procedure to get all the rest of the sediment out, only 5% of Mumms total is done by hand.






The picture of what we got to taste at the tasting afterwards. It was wonderful, David said that he could drink LOTS of this one.... hehe



After we tried to take a tour of Veuve, but you had to reserve two weeks in advance, which we had not done, but we still got to take a peak and see everything yellow!




Tomorrow David leaves for Berlin, a short 8 hour train ride from Paris for his adventures, I am going back to Bordeaux tomorrow evening with Jeremie.
All in all Reims rated a 5 star with the three of us, we are contemplating when we can go back next to see MORE!
Love to all

And David has arrived!

So today I went to CDG to pick up David from the airport. We all went back to Asnieres sur Seine, where Jeremie's grandfathers apartment is and had a relaxing lunch. Jeremie's grandfather Rene, is currently at his country house, so its just us three here. David and I went walking around Paris this afternoon to get some air, we missed the train to go to Giverny, and it started to rain a little, so wasn't exactly the best moment to go. We headed back to the apartment to get Jeremie and have some coffee before going out to an early dinner. We went to a French brasserie right across from the "Bourse" or stock exchange. Built in 1808, it was quite a nice building.
Tomorrow we are off for a day of exploring the Champagne region, which is 45 minutes by train. Much love to all, David, Sarah and Jeremie