Monday December 18: Reims
Transit Day
This was mostly a transit day.
Last night, Amy had a really good night’s sleep. I had essentially a recap of the previous night: I fell asleep just fine, but then I woke up around 2 or 2:30 and had trouble falling back asleep. I eventually did, and as one might expect, I was sleeping fine when the alarm went off at 5:50.
I took a quick shower, and we packed up our suitcases. Breakfast didn’t start until 6:30, and we were supposed to be ready to leave at 7:15. We brought our suitcases down around 6:15, so we could get in line and be one of the first ones in for breakfast. When we got down, we found that about 40-50 people had had the same idea and were already in line.
When breakfast opened, they got us seated very quickly. I had to wait a bit before the omelet station was staffed, and then I got an omelet and a croissant. I finished eating just before 7 and went up to the room. I hit the bathroom, and then Amy showed up. We grabbed our coats and day pack/stuff, and we headed down on time for a change. It turns out that they were running rather late, so we had about a half hour to kill.
On the other hand, it was good in that when we came down, our suitcases were not yet loaded. When I was putting on my jacket, I suddenly remembered that I had left my earpiece in the pocket of my lighter jacket, which was now packed away (I was wearing my heavier jacket). But since my bags were still there, I could open up my suitcase, grab the earpiece out of my jacket pocket, and then close up my suitcase again for stowage on the bus.
The weather was dry, but there was a solid overcast. I think our room was actually in the bottom layer of the clouds. I think it will be like that for most of the rest of the trip.
I dozed a bit while we were driving. We stopped in Reims to visit the cathedral. Then we got a small tour to the center of town. We were on our own for lunch again. The guide recommended a place where a large number of us went. Being in France and close to the Lorraine area, both Amy and I ended up getting Quiche Lorraine. We got coffees because it was rather damp and raw outside.
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Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to visit the Christmas Market in Reims. Amy and I would have been happier if we skipped the second stop (the upcoming cemetery stop) and spent more time in Reims, so that we could have visited the market.
Halfway to the next stop, we were amazed when some weak sun came out. That makes things so much nicer. We could see a lot of water-logged fields next to the road.
Just before we got to Luxembourg, we suddenly entered a dense fog. I don’t know if it formed at that time, whether it was geographically limited and we just crossed the edge, or whether we gained elevation and entered a low cloud bank. It was one of the densest fogs I’ve been in for rather some time. I was also a lot more widespread than my previous experiences.
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We stopped at the American Cemetery, where a lot of the casualties from the Battle of the Bulge (which occurred a few miles further north) were buried. It was OK, but I think I would have preferred the Reims Christmas Market.
The ground there was wet, particularly the grass. I don’t know if rained there before we arrived, or whether it was just a really heavy dew. In any event, my sneakers got rather wet.
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Then we continued on into Germany proper, exited the highway, and dropped down in the valley to Trier. We were the second bus to leave in the morning, but somehow we had passed the first bus, so we were the first to reach the boat. We got checked in fairly quickly and shown to our room.
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Our two carry-on bags were already there, and we started to unpack them. Then Amy’s checked bag arrived. She completely unpacked her things before my checked bag arrived. I unpacked my stuff, and then we went up to the main lounge to wait for the entrance briefing. Fool that I was, I brought the iPad with me so that I could start typing the day’s log up while waiting for the talk to begin. We found the place was already packed, and there was really nowhere to sit, much less have space to use the iPad, so I quickly went back and dropped it off in our room. Our room is the second one from the front of the boat, so it is pretty quick to get there and back.
Amy opened up two folding chairs, so we got somewhere to sit. We had a flute of complimentary champagne (fitting as we just drove through the Champagne region).
The plan for tomorrow is that we’ll leave for a tour of the city in the morning, and then the boat will leave. We’ll tour in the morning, and then we’ll be bussed about 20 minutes downriver where we will re-board the boat. Apparently it will take the boat about 3 hours to get to the next port, due to navigation limitations.
I think we might luck out with the weather. I checked and it looks like a good chance of rain, but not until after noon. It should start raining just after we get back on board.
We then went down for a late dinner. As usual, it was very good.
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It is now 10:00, and I’m writing this up. During the summer, I would probably be doing this on the sun-deck, but on this trip I’m inside in the lounge. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to sleep tonight.
I had gotten a text from the power company that they were working on a number of outages in our area. That got me concerned so I texted Sam. I got a bit worried when he didn’t reply for a while, but eventually he wrote that he was fine and that we hadn’t had a power outage. Sam will write a small novel to his friends, but I’m lucky to get a one-syllable reply.