Champagne

Yesterday my friends and I boarded a (I think Nazi-run) bright yellow tour bus and made our way to the northeastern corner of France blessed personally by God himself.

God decided to reach down his all-powerful pointer finger from the sky and say “I now dub these grapes as the most expensive grapes in the world, and they shall be called champagne grapes, and in a few thousand years the French people who shall inherit them –because the French are the most blessed and capable alcoholics of my creation--will charge $1,500,000 for a square hectare of land where these grapes grow and this will make Me, God, very happy. And yay, these grapes will rot in bottles for up to 50 years, and will make young married couples and rich people on their yachts very drunk and I will personally charge each person at least $50 a bottle to share in the joy of this, the most blessed of divine alcoholic nectar. And there will be much rejoicing. And I will be pleased. Amen to Me.”

And thus, the Champagne (shamp-on: champagne) region was born.  And God saw that it was good. 

Yes, this really happened. Just look it up. It's in there, right above the chapter about Lady Gaga.

The French take champagne very seriously, and even copyrighted the term “Champagne” so that only sparkling vin (von: wine) of this region can be called “champagne”-- all other sparkling wines of every other less magical place on Earth must be referred to as “using the champagne method”.  Champagne cellar tours start with very high budget promotionalpropaganda about how magical and divinely-inspired the fermentation of their grapes are, with Moët & Chandon (the creators of Dom Perignon) one-upping everyone else by having Scarlett Johannson herself narrate their five minute clip in her best smoky, post-coital seductive rendition of “drink me” possible.

The tours of the cellars take you 12 meters below ground into cold, dark, mold-invested cellars (but "expensive mold" the tour guide ensured us, "the mold they make Roquefort cheese with!"), where the labor and time-intensive details of champagne fabrication (re: rotting grapes in bottles) are explained—how the bottles have to be turned and held at varying 20 degree angles every day for three weeks.  Ensuite (on-sweet: then) depending on the quality, these bottles must be stored between 3 and 20 years before they're ready to be labeled and sold. All in all an educational experience, especially when it came time for the tasting, my favorite part.

In the days leading up to my much-anticipated tour of this, the most béni (behn-ee: divinely blessed) region of France, my excitement seemed best summed-up by the scene “The Night They Invented Champagne” from the Colette novella-inspired musical Gigi, which you can watch if you click the link below (YouTube embedding links are not working for me right now). I feel like singing this song every time I open a glass of bubbly, even though my bottles are usually Korbel and cost $10. Whatever, when it comes to alcohol my motto is: who cares where the alcohol was made when you're drunk?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMiCGOZVkgQ

Grenoble

You can't say I didn't try.  I gave it two months and a lot of hope, but last week I finally decided I'd had enough of small town living.  I'm a city girl at heart, and after spending an amazing weekend with Andrew exploring Lyon and Grenoble, I decided to move into a quaint and quirky French apartment near the Stade des Alpes in the center of Grenoble, and along with it a big cut in my spending money.  Mais tant pis, c'est la vie en la belle France (may tahn-t pee, say lah vee on leh bell Frahn-s: But too bad, that's life in beautiful France).

The truth was, I was afraid that if I didn't move soon no one would ever want to talk to me again.  Life in La Côte Saint André brought out a whole new breed of pessimist in me that I didn't even know existed. So, I'm really thinking of my relocation as a mental health investment.  Don't get me wrong: La Côte is just as full of friendly people and pretty rolling hills as it ever was.  But I've spent my entire life in small towns.  I needed a change of pace.  I'm one of those people who gets a secret thrill out of over-crowded shops, busy traffic, and strangers walking down the street who never wave or say hi.  Unfortunately, this sort of high-quality lifestyle is usually reserved for high-population areas, and definitely doesn't exist in small-town France.



This sort of urban gruffness does exist in Grenoble, however.  In fact, Grenoble is one of those rare cities that makes up for in character what it lacks in size.  The entire city is surrounded by desolate mountain ranges that, at this time of year, are covered in neige (neh-j: snow).  Luckily this makes for amazing views out your window no matter how crappy the rest of your apartment might be.  The ancient stone cathedrals, Drac and Isère rivers, and la Bastille (lah bahst-eel) guarding over the city are all within (reasonable) walking distance, and no matter which street corner you're standing on, you're never far away from a glass of wine or cup of coffee in a toasty warm café (kaf-eh) offering reprieve from the frigid cold.


My own personal favorite part of being a new resident of Grenoble?  In a matter of the three days I've been living here, I've managed to get all my Christmas shopping done at Victor Hugo Square's fabulous marché de Noël (marsh-ay duh no-ell: Christmas market), which is basically a crowded smorgasbord of Alsace-inspired wooden looking vendor's booths selling random knickknacks and, more importantly, mulled wine.


Of course, as any true dorky francophile would, I also christened my new place with a bottle of cheap champagne I bought at the local Casino supermarket down the street.  And you know what I realized as I toasted to my own smart thinking at becoming a Grenoblois (gr-uh-nob-lwa: inhabitant of Grenoble)?  Drinking a glass of champagne in my apartment while listening to drunken teenagers stumble down the street and grumpy French drivers crash into each other never tasted so good.  Vive la France (veev lah Frahn-s: long live France)!

Clercking, clacking, cubicles, and champagne

As most people know, champagne is simply a sparkling white wine made from grapes grown only in the region of Champagne, in the northeast of France. Most all countries have their own just-as-tasty knock-offs of the good stuff because, let's face it: celebratory times can only be properly acknowledged with alcohol and bubbles.

I can honestly say that tonight I discovered the reason they invented champagne: to toast the end of depressing cubical jobs spent sitting in front of the blue glow of the computer screen. After eleven months of work under the title "Data Entry Clerk", all I ever really had to show from my job was an ass that has artfully crafted itself into the shape of my swivel chair. That, and perhaps a case of carpel tunnel syndrome.

But no longer. Today was my last day at my (now old) job. To celebrate, Andrew and I went to Red (the restaurant) and toasted with a glass of bubbly to all the old, crappy jobs we've ever had, all of which have thankfully come to end somehow, and to all the (hopefully not so crappy) jobs we might have again. Don't get me wrong, I've met plenty of super friendly, talented people this past year due to my work. Which is why I also secretly toasted that their crappy jobs would soon come to an end too, so that they could move on to bigger and better opportunities at a company that actually gives raises and sick leave. What can I say? I believe in the power of "Cheers!".

So, here's to crappy jobs, great jobs, and all that happens in between those paychecks! As the champagne toasts go in France: tchin-tchin!