Burgundy, Day 1.

Bonjour America!!

So I'm back from my AMAZING trip to Burgundy! My mind has just been completely blown by this trip!! There's so much to tell, and so many pictures to share, that I've decided to break this up by day, and include a link to my photo gallery for the bandwidth-challenged.


I met my boss at the airport around 6, our flight left at 10 (we're punctual) and thanks to a certain someone, my flight was pretty uneventful, unless you count Mr. Microscopic Bladder in the seat next to me on the plane.. Xanax, you are my friend...

We arrived in Paris at Charles de Gaulle airport, and after a quick jaunt through Immigration and Customs and all that crap, we were off!!! Unfortunately, we were really off, and came out the wrong side of the metro station, and ended up making what was supposed to be a 15 minute walk to our hotel into a 45 minute walk to our hotel!

After finally reaching our hotel, we drop off our stuff, and then go on a mini quest to find this mustard shop for my coworker, Steven, so I can buy him a jar of this fresh mustard with Chablis that comes out of a tap like a beer. And in exchange for this holy grail of mustards, I'm getting a Bordeaux from my birth year! (nothing less that premier cru, please!) After that we decided to walk along the Seine river. We also waved at the Latin Quarter. Don't ask.

We walked past the Louvre, but the line was a million miles long (in January! Imagine what it's like in tourist season, when it isn't cold and damp outside!!) and we decided to hit up Notre Dame instead.

Notre Dame was beautiful, full of all these amazingly intricate stained glass windows! It was very pretty, and I found a little prayer station thing for Joan of Arc, very cool! Then we stopped at a little cafe across the street and I had my first sip of trouble! The coffee in France is NOT like the coffee in America! The coffee I'm used to is slightly bitter, black, and I take it with milk and sugar. Most likely two sugars, to cut the bitter. NOT this coffee!! Omg, it's sooo good! It's strong and brown and has a slightly frothy head (like a Guinness, strangely enough) and wasn't bitter at all! It was so good, I didn't even use cream and 1 piece of sugar! It was love at first sip, and for the rest of the trip, all you had to do was say something *close* to coffee, and I was interested! Okay, I'll stop with the coffee bit now....

After seeing Notre Dame, we decided to ask our very friendly concierge for a recommendation for dinner, and he gave us a general direction for places to go. We found a Chinese restaurant, a sushi restaurant, a kebab joint, a pizza joint, and finally a quaint little bistro that still had it's Christmas decorations up. That happened a lot, actually, all over France they must celebrate Christmas WELL into the New Year, the tree out front of Notre Dame was still decorated, as was most of Burgundy!! Anyway, we sit, we look at the menu, and I decide on Andoulliette sausage, since I'd never had one before and thought it would be similar to American Andouillie sausage... BIG mistake! BIG! HUGE! It was pungent, rubbery, and DEFINITELY high up there on the list of disgusting things I've consumed!! If it weren't for the SPICY mustard, I don't think I would have been able to eat it! God, I STILL shiver thinking about that thing....

The best part is that when the waiter came to deliver our bill, he looked undecided about who to give the bill to, so I pointed to my boss, since he's the one paying for this, and when the waiter trying to be funny asked me why I wasn't paying, I responded with, "It's business". Which was then met by saucy laughter and the waiter sharing "Eeets Beez-nes" with the rest of the staff, who also joined in on the laughter.... Never a dull moment, I tell you... So now a cafe in Paris thinks I'm a prostitute.. awesome... Glad I didn't wear a booby shirt!

So I think that's enough for one day, you can all now go back to your regularly scheduled lives, I'll post more about my second day, when I actually arrived in Burgundy later, for now I'm going to go attempt to find something resembling food.