The Champagne Region of France and DODs Soccer Tournament

Chris is helping coach the Alconbury high school boys’ soccer team this year, and despite the fact that they had only scored one goal in the regular season (they’re a really young and inexperienced team!) has really enjoyed the experience.   The boys’ regular season has consisted of six games: against the three other UK bases and three NATO bases from Belgium.  To finish the year, all of the Department of Defense high school teams from Europe get together for a championship tournament which this year was held at Ramstein AFB in Germany.  Chris broached the idea of driving to the tournament about a month ago, when Braxton was about a month old, and I basically laughed in his face.  No WAY!  Nurses, friends, and family have agreed that we have been blessed with a SPIRITED child… he basically spent the first six weeks of his life crying his little eyes out, despite our best efforts with swaddling and every other “S” there is.  We’re not sure if it’s his personality, the fact that he spent the first week of life getting poked and prodded in the hospital, or maybe because he was in no way ready to be born when he was snatched out but we are hoping he continues to grow out of it!  Anyway, I distinctly remember Chris telling me about the tournament at the end of a day particularly filled with wails.  I also distinctly remember looking at Braxton, then at Chris, snappily asking him if 16+ hours in a car with a two-month old sounded like a relaxing or enjoyable endeavor.  Chris counter-offered with “well, I could just go.”  Pretty sure I just gave him ‘the look’ (and not the one that says ‘sure honey, you go’).  Fast forward a few weeks…  and here we are in Germany!  Not only has Brax turned a corner, but Chris knows how to sell me on trips. It’s only 8 hours in a car to Ramstein, he said, and the route happens to go directly through the champagne region of France (somewhere I’ve really wanted to go since we moved here three years ago) and the route home could easily include visits to three of the six Belgium Trappist breweries (which Chris has been anxious to visit.)  And lastly, we realized Ramstein was within a couple hours of the photogenic Rhine Valley.  Thus a fairly epic last (!?!) trip was born.  

Saturday morning we dropped Bailey at the kennel and then packed the car.  How does a 14-pound two-month-old take up 87% of the luggage space?!  I swore I’d be the mom to travel light but then decided we had to have the BOB stroller, thought it’d be in Braxton’s best interest to carry his Moses basket with us, and couldn’t decide on his outfits as I’ve never had to dress him for 80 degree weather.  We did manage to get it all packed in the car and were blessed with a baby that fell asleep five minutes into the 2.5-hour drive to the Chunnel and stayed asleep until we got there.  Chris and I had time to chat, which first-time parents may understand is a HUGE deal.  Most of the talk was about our little man, of course, but it was still wonderful to have that time.  I fed B when we were waiting for our car train to board and realized how many weird places he’d eat before the trip was done: in the backseat of the (parked) car in three different countries, on a train, on a boat, in a restaurant, at a vineyard, and watching a soccer game to name a few!

The rest of our drive to Reims in the champagne region of France was just as easy because of a very sleepy Braxton.  The trip took an hour longer than it would have with the two of us as we stopped when he got fussy, but we couldn’t have asked more from him!  We rested at the hotel for a few minutes before going in to Reims for an early evening walk-about and found the city to be remarkably charming.  It was Saturday night, and the sidewalk cafes were packed with groups of families and friends enjoying everything from coffee to juice to champagne.  One wild guess what I ordered :D  Since alcohol in breast milk mirrors the blood alcohol level (and doesn’t get ‘trapped’ there) there was a lot of planning as to what and when I could drink.  B may have had the equivalent to a sip or two but don’t worry grandmas, that wasn’t why he slept so well!

Cathedral Notre Dame in Reims

 

Sunday we had a lazy morning (B gets up around 6:00 and has his first nap around 7:30) and then drove the scenic champagne trail through the region admiring the vineyards and stopping in some of the region’s tiny villages to walk around and take in the vistas. 

 

Grapes

 

Chris and sleeping Braxton by some of the vineyards surrounding Verzy.

 

We landed in Eparney, the self-proclaimed champagne capital of the world.  The city itself was less charming than Reims or the rest of the tiny villages, but was so interesting in that we were able to tour the famous champagne house of Moet & Chandon.  It was such an interesting hour as a sweet guide explained in French-tinged English how the famous bubbly is produced and then toured about two kilometers of the 118-km worth of caves winding underneath the town.  The caves are cut out of the chalk and house hundreds of thousands of bottles of champagne in various stages of readiness.  Napoleon  (and most influential political leaders, it seems) had visited these same caves quite a few times in his day.  Little man literally slept from when we started the tour until after the tasting, with one quirk: he needed to hold Chris’ finger.  As soon as Chris took his hand away, Braxton would stir.  So stinking cute! 

 

Hundreds of thousands of bottles of champagne stashed in the caves.

Little fingers white from the death grip he had on Chris' thumb for the hour and a half he was asleep.

Tasting some grand vintage Moet & Chandon champagnes... yes please!

In front of the Moet & Chandon house in Epernay.

 

Bottles everywhere!

Dom Perignon was the monk credited with inventing champagne.

 

We had an early dinner at a small restuarant in Erpeney with six mini glasses of champagne from some of the area's smaller producers.

 

Eating dinner before mom tastes lots of different champagnes!

HAPPY Braxton!

The drive from Eperney to Ramstein took a few hours, including about an hour stop at gorgeous, grassy rest area where Chris took a nap and Braxton and I played in the grass under a tree.

So, Ramstein AFB is HUGE.  Massive.  A city.  It could’ve swallowed our tiny little Alconbury and no one would’ve noticed the difference.  The BX had a selection of hundreds of purses, including at least 30 Coach bags.  I guess that’s not impressive if you’ve never been to our BX but people from our tiny base will get the humor.

We tried to do everything in our power to keep Braxton’s schedule consistent, especially his bedtime routine.  We had to get creative when the hotel didn’t have a bathtub...

Bath time!

 

End-of-evening daddy Braxton chat time.

 

The boy’s were guaranteed three games in the USAFE tournament, and were seeded at the very bottom of their bracket.  Their first game was especially fun to watch as they scored their second goal of the season and were actually winning for a while against a team seeded much higher than they were.  They ended up losing 3-1 but played the best they had all year.  We were proud of them!  The second and third games were played against two of the top seeded teams and the results unfortunately reflected this.  We really enjoyed the weather and cheering the boys on.  Now the journey home through Belgium begins...

The boys warming up before what would be their final game.

Braxton enjoying the German sun on the beautiful quilt Sarah made him.

Someone had a big day!!