Day 28, 29, and 30

I have had an awesome three days. On Friday, we took a tour of Epernay, which is kind of like the capital of the Champagne region in France. The town was adorable. We toured two champagne houses, Mercier and Moet & Chandon.

View of Epernay

The houses were so beautiful!

In between the tastings, we had time to walk around the town. They had a beautiful park, complete with a pond and lily pads!

Mercier doesn't import to the States, so we didn't really know much about their house going into the tour. They put a lot of effort into their tours. They had a movie and this weird glass elevator ride that was kind of like Pirates of the Caribbean in Disney World. And then they took us on a little train ride all throughout the company's cellars. And then of course we had a tasting! I really prefer champagne to wine. I had no complaints!

Mercier Vineyard

Huge replication of a the barrel that Mercier brought to the World Fair in Paris. Same World Fair the Eiffel Tower was built for. In fact, supposedly the barrel was the #2 attraction, second to the Eiffel Tower.

Train ride in the cellar

Huge machines that turn the champagne so the sediments will collect a certain way. It used to be done by hand, and is still done by hand for certain champagnes.

Moet & Chandon was amazing. The building was amazing, our guide was so sweet, and we saw Mario Cantone! From Sex and the City! He was amazing too. He let us take pictures with him, but sadly none of mine came out. Just my luck. Oh well! The Moet tasting was awesome too, and the gift shop was ridiculous. There were so many ridiculous champagne accessories to buy. They even had a recreation of this famous cup that Marie Antoinette had. I think Karl Lagerfeild designed the new one, but the plaque next to it said that the original was "rumored to be molded from the Queen herself."

Statue of the monk, Dom Perignon. 

Inside the actual former home of the Moet & Chandon family

Statue of Mary in the cellar. They said she keeps the bottles from exploding.

Champagne flute chandelier

Tasting!

Ridiculous Marie Antoinette Boob Cup

When we got back from the tour, we were starving. We took the girls from the Florence group out for one last dinner at a restaurant called "Indiana." I have no idea why it's named Indiana, because they serve Mexican food, but it doesn't matter because it was seriously delicious. Best Mexican I've ever had. I don't have pictures of it, but I got a huge beef burrito, and the beef was like roast. It was all falling apart and melted in my mouth...so, so good.

We went to bed early because we had an early train to Amsterdam! We were so happy to not have a night train again. And it only took 3 hours!

Amsterdam has been awesome. I am seriously in love with the city. It's not too big, or too small. There's so much to do! And the canals are so beautiful. As soon as I win the lottery, I'm buying a houseboat on the canals. Some of them were pretty much trailers on water, but other ones were adorable. The canals almost reminded me of Louisiana. The water's pretty brown, and it's full of people with their friends or families drinking on their boats and having a good time! My kind of summer day!

Saturday was a pretty relaxed day. We didn't really have much planned, so we just walked around. We saw a lot of weird stuff...but it was funny. There was this old man on a rascal scooter that was screaming in the streets and going as fast as he could so he could try to pop wheelies. It was probably the funniest thing I've ever seen. But while it was happening we were too scared that he was going to hit us to appreciate how hilarious it was. We ate some amazing falafel, and came back to the hotel. Boring, I know, but the hotel is awesome. We have a tub, and american television. I know it's gross, but I have seriously missed TV. And they were playing the Dog Whisperer. Not my favorite, but it was good enough! And then they had a movie channel too, but it played weird old movies like Basic Instinct. Sharon Stone plays crazy a little too well. That was a scary movie.

So, today was pretty busy. At least I feel like we saw a lot, which is good. We took a really long canal cruise and basically saw the whole city. It was so beautiful. That's when I fell in love! Then we went to the Heineken brewery. It was so cool. The man that started the company was really interesting. He did so much for his workers and revolutionized quality of beer. He even figured out how to make bottles that could be recycled to build houses. Pretty awesome. Plus we got three free beers. Even though we only drank one. Ha!

We took the cruise back to the Anne Frank house. It was so weird being there after reading about it. We didn't get to go inside (the line was enormous) but we did get to walk around it. After that we headed towards Kalverstraat, which is a big shopping street. Most of the stores were closed by the time we got there, but that's okay. We were heading back to our hotel when we accidently crossed over the Red Light District. Talk about disgusting. I can't believe a city that is so beautiful and charming in some places can have that in it too! It was worse than New Orleans! Pretty shocking. Thank God it was during the day.

Our last stop was a delicious Thai restaurant called the Little Thai Prince. I thought that was funny. I got the Pad Thai and it was much, much better than any Pimon Thai I've ever had. The spring rolls were definitely better too. But they were fried, so I guess you can't really compare them.

And now we're in bed! Our train leaves around 8 tomorrow morning, so I have to get some sleep!

Love and miss y'all!

Allie

P.S. Obviously, the pictures of Amsterdam are missing. I don't know why, but they stopped uploading again! I'm going to try again to come back and put them in, but I'm not sure what the problem is. In the meantime, I think I'm going to just post them to a separate website, that way you guys can see all of them and not just snippets. I'll keep you posted! Sorry!