Markus and Brian's Excellent European Adventure

Dear Diary

I'm sorry I haven't written you in so long! I hope you haven't gone off cavorting in the woods with another author.

The thermal baths in Baden-Baden (click here for pictures since my camera would have looked really scandalous bulging out of my bathing shorts) were so incredibly relaxing and worthwhile. So many indoor and outdoor baths/pools. Some calm, some actively fed by the underground source, all at a minimum of 30 degrees Celcius. (Except for one I called the Canada Grotto at a chilly 16 Celcius). The natural mineral water was also a little salty, making it very easy to float and forget the world. Only downside was that it was pretty empty and I felt a little awkward whenever I was around the young couples that were going like this: smooch SMOOCH smooch, and like this: smoooooooooooch. I mean, c'mon, that's what the steam bath was for.

The next day I finally got into France, though the continuing rail strike made what was supposed to be a 3 hour train ride to the sleepy wine town of Beaune a 10 hour ordeal. Man, French people get really cranky when they're stuck for hours in the middle of nowhere on a sweltering, humid, stagnant train. And that was before the snack cart ran out of drinks.

Beaune rocked. Stayed in a tiny room in an even tinier hotel run by a crazy, charismatic old woman. The town is smack-dab in the middle of the Cote D'Or wine region and takes its wines seriously. Not something wimpy like "Canadians take hockey seriously" type of serious. I'm talking "Parents take their baby pictures seriously" type of serious. That serious.

First night I was there, I went to a small recommended wine cellar restaurant where they sit most visitors of one or two people down at a long, long table. It was a fantastic way to meet people; the table had two Canadians, one American, one Spaniard, two Dutch, and four French. We all ended up talking (with me doing some translation for the French) and having a great time.

The next day, I went drinking. Well, ostensibly, "wine tasting followed by spitting," but when you're paying 9 Euros to sample wines, that stuff's doing the full tour, if you know what I mean. It was a great time; you decend into a dark, damp winding staircase into a musty cellar lit mostly by candlelight. Upon each barrel on the self-guided tour, there's a candle and a bottle of wine. You pour a small amount of wine into a little metal cup you bring with you, and sample the wine before spitting into a nearby spittoon. But since no one else was around, I made sure to fully appreciate the hints of oak and truffles and elderberry and whatnot at length before moving onto the next vintage. The signs warned that if you were down there for more than an hour, they'd come searching for you with their two largest grape crushers, "Pierre" and "Spike," and nicely show you the door.

Na, I'm really not that bad an influence, for all of you young, impressionable kids reading this website. (Heh, heh...) I walked out on my own two feet and did some nice, wholesome rented-biking around the vineyard-riddled French countryside aftewards.

I'm in Lyon right now, hanging out with a cool and friendly Wisconson guy named Matt. So far we've seen the Contemporary Art Museum (filled with all sorts of strange multimedia exhibits, giant statues of cats with moving boggly eyes, and pretentious single-green-leaf-sitting-on-an-oak-chair style statements; it was actually a blast, overall) and a museum chronicalling the French Resistance during World War II. The latter blew us away; not only did it have a lost of fascinating, engaging exhibits exploring the Resistance from all possible angles, but some info on the Holocaust as well. The museum was so well presented and powerful; we had to decompress for a while afterwards, as Matt put it, to take it all in. It's easy to forget just how much of an impact the war(s) had on the world, and it's especially more significant now that I'm here, seeing where it all took place a mere 60 years ago.

So now, I'll head back up to the hostel, located up the hill in the old part of town, with a fantastic terrace outside overlooking the whole city. I'll make sure to get a nighttime photo for you guys. Tomorrow, Interlaken and seeing Markus again. I'll make fun of his Weisswurst-stuffed potbelly and dash away, giggling, while he chases me in a drunken stupor. Till then.

Posted by Brian at June 15, 2003 09:34 PM