“My god it’s early,” I think as we careen through the Vosges Mountains in a camionnette (cargo van) that would be better served as machine gun target. Benîot and I are headed to Metz, which is essentially the last stop before Luxembourg for a salon des vins. He is not happy about the turn of events with this camionnette and I think he is trying to kill the damn thing. I do the whole fall asleep for half a second until he slams into a curve redlining the engine, which causes me to snap my neck back up in that special “I’m awake” way we all do when passing out in a car and we repeat this procession for roughly an hour. I just have not recovered at all from the day before when I hand loaded 8500 bottles to be labeled over a nine-hour period and then pushed thousand pound loads of booze from one corner to the next. I followed that up with packing, cleaning, eating, and other whatnots before finally falling asleep sometime after midnight. You ever have finger fatigue? It’s a really weird sensation to have your fingers say, “time for bed.”
The day hasn’t started out well. The father had come by the night before to say he’d leave me the GPS on my doorstep and when I left the next morning there was no such GPS so I checked his door, and then his car. Nope, Nada, et Rien. I was stalked by the peacock and then had to wait for what seemed like forever, as Benôit was late. He shows up with the keys to the camionnette and I toss my bag in the truck and we are off and as we are flying down the highway I notice a wire or a cord or something stretching it’s way across the window.
“What…the…hell…is that?”
“GP…S,” he responds without a whisper of worry. He rolls the window down and snags the computer part but the wire is wrapped hard so he just rolls it up into the window. I have no idea why it was placed there especially since we picked up the truck in absolute darkness. It’s not like it was after sunrise where we’d see it and go, “Oh, that’s why it wasn't on my doorstep.”
Fast forward three hours and we arrive in Metz and I grab the GPS and look for the address for the event.
“Where’s the address, Benôit?”
“Don’t know.”
I look and look through all the paperwork and low and behold we don’t have the address to where we are supposed to be. We drive around Metz as if in a Benny Hill sketch with errors galore and finally find a huge building set in the middle of what appears to me as nowhere. I walk inside and see that almost everyone is set up and we find out booth and it is completely bare. I mean abso-freakin-lutely nothing is there. I had figured it to be like Paris where a table, glasses, and a fridge would be provided but none of that was here. Luckily Benôit knew more than I did and brought glasses and by chance had a table and cloth to cover it so we rigged an area. Later we liberated a table but that’s neither here nor there and this is no place for confessions.
We sell two cases of wine right off the bat and all looks well until we realize that would be the only person who would even taste wine let alone buy some for the next four hours. I took this time to combat my boredom with what I do best and that is test wine. By two I realize I’m a bit cooked and at three as I begin to sober up and my achy body and tired mind take over. I literally feel like death warmed over. I pay my 4 Euros ($5.25) for a shot of espresso and the price was well worth it as it snapped me out of my funk and back into the game that wasn’t even being played. It was so slow. I don’t know, maybe Easter weekend isn’t the best time to hold a wine faire. I know that the girls in Calais, Apolline and Co at another salon de vins, were rocking so I can only think that this appears to be more of a gastronomic faire than a wine faire so we are a bit in the secondary.
I did have my moments though especially when three groups arrived at the same time and my interpreter was gone. I was hemmed in, pinned down, under the gun so to speak so I just let it rip. Finally one lady asked where I was from and I explained I was an American studying wine and for some reason they all loved it. I told them that if they talk a bit slower we’d all be fine and guess what, they did, and we were. By the time Benôit showed back up I had them all drinking and speaking French and laughing and he just had this look on his face where he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or be impressed. I must note though the next group of people I couldn’t understand a word they were saying and I looked like a total dim wit.
Later as we drove to the hotel I noticed that this city reminded me of something that I didn’t like, oh god what is it, what is it, oh yeah, Dallas. I mean all I see are huge buildings, not tall but just f’n huge, chain eateries, and a bizillion car dealerships. This is France? I am ready to write the town off until but we head to centre ville and before I know it I realize why people come here with its excellent shopping and cafes and narrow streets and a HUGE cathedral. Rivers converge in this city and we walk along one of them as we try to find a place to eat and we do and it rests between the river and the cathedral and I people watch and drink and enjoy the cigarette smoke from another table. I of course forgot my camera once again. I had thought we were just going to head out the door and get a bite from one of the local chains and had no idea we were headed into the old part of the city. I have to remind myself to strap that bad boy to me at all times. For a former boy scout, I’m horribly prepared it seems for most things coming my way as of late.
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