Andrei and Cornelia's Wedding

This weekend was my friends Andrei and Cornelia's wedding.  I'd gone to Magdalene with Cornelia, although at the time she'd always struck me as a very severe German.  (I later was to learn that she's just German, they're simply all like that!)  Never would have imagined that years later I would be going to her wedding, but she met her husband, Andrei, a really nice and mellow guy, and over the years I'd become friends with them both.  Now it was time to go celebrate!  


The bride was German, the groom was Russian, and they lived in London, so for the wedding?  I needed to trek over to France.  Why France for the wedding?  I actually asked the bride about that, and she said, "Well, we thought about London, but it seemed like the instant you mentioned anything with the word 'wedding', they just tripled the price.  So then we thought about Moscow (where the groom is from), but we realised that visas were going to be tricky for a lot of the guests, and it would be hard for a lot of people to travel that far.  So then we thought about Bonn, at the church where I was baptized.  But they were really unhelpful, and said that we couldn't have an English-speaking priest, and were just throwing up a lot of obstacles.  And then a co-worker of Andrei's had gotten married here, and we came down for a weekend and looked at a bunch of castles, and they were just so nice and helpful here, and the local church was so great about finding us an English-speaking priest, and everything was just so easy, that it seemed like the most logical choice."  Gosh those Germans, always doing the most logical thing!  

We were laughing, as in France you need to have a civil wedding before a religious one, and they'd had their civil wedding 1.5 years ago.  (You might recall, I went to their unexpected wedding reception).  The reason being, they had planned this wedding for this time last year, and then got pregnant, with the kid being due RIGHT at the time of the wedding.  So that had to be scrapped, they went ahead and did a quick civil wedding in the UK, and now we were finally getting to have the party (with the 11-month old).  

The moat at Chenonceau

 So it was quite the trek to get there.  First on the Tube to St. Pancras, getting my ticket, hobbling through the x-ray machines and metal detectors and then the train to Paris.  Once in Paris, out to get Euros from the cashpoint, and then trying to figure out where to get a cab.  Finally found the taxi rank, and was quite surprised by this official who came and pulled me out of the line (what had I done wrong?) and of course I couldn't understand what he was trying to tell me in French.  Luckily it became clear when he marched me to the front of the line, as apparently due to my crutches I didn't have to wait in line and could get the next cab.  How nice of him!

Then on to Montparnasse, where I tried to print my reserved ticket out from one of the machines, but without success.  So I stood on line at a ticket counter (train was leaving in 15 min) and then once I got to the front, realised that I had no idea how to say, "I can't print out my ticket, can you help me?"  Luckily, the guy spoke some limited English and was able to infer from me pointing at my reservation record on my phone what on earth I wanted!  Seriously, I need to learn a few more key French phrases...

Chenonceau

Then got to St. Pierre des Corps, where more people kept jabbering at me in French until I realised they were trying to tell me not to go down the steps at the platform, but to take a lift.  How nice, although I was quite alarmed by all of the people who kept insistently dragging me away from the stairs!  Once outside, I was met by the bride and a friend of hers.  We went straight to Chenonceau, where we wandered around the old castle for a while, which was really pretty, and very neat how it was built right out over the river.  

Looking out the balcony at Chenonceau over the gardens

I got back to the hotel, where I was pleasantly surprised when my phone rang with a call from the Tall South African!  He'd been gone in Italy all week, and I have to say, I hadn't realised how much I enjoyed talking to him each day until I didn't, as I really missed him.  So I was a little bit disappointed when after complaining about how hard he'd been working lately (ever since returning from Italy), and he said, "Screw it, what are you doing tonight?  I'll come down to London and have a drink with you." Alas, I had to tell him I was in France, there would be no doing that!  Next week, perhaps...

We then went out in the evening and had dinner that evening at a little rustic French restaurant, where we all got mixed in with the bride's family, but it turns out that everyone in the Cambridge crowd speaks at least some German, so we generally held our own.

The next day was the wedding, so we just generally hung out at the castle until it was time to walk over in the afternoon.  As I noted in the photos, we just walked from the castle to the church, only about a 10 minute walk, and very cool as it was a little trek through the woods.  The service was lovely, even as the priest struggled a bit in halting English, and then of course we had the tradition of sawing the log afterwards.  It took them quite a bit to saw all of the way through it, but they managed it!

Then back to the castle for a champagne and canapé reception in the courtyard, followed by dinner upstairs in this glass covered room that we think was originally a Ladies Garden.  Good food, plenty of wine, and since the groom is Russian, they put a bottle of vodka on each table.  Which may have explained why some people decided to go swimming in the hotel pool at 3 AM, even though it was an outdoor pool and only about 55 degrees out!  (In a departure from my usual party style, I only lasted until about 1:30 AM, before I just had to pack it in and head to bed).  

Then on Sunday, all there was to do was have breakfast and head home.  We got a taxi from the castle to St Pierre des Corps, and since I spent the last of my Euros on the taxi, I got another 40€ out of the wall, but then never ended up spending it!  Ooops!  

Then once at Montparnasse, I realised that I was short on time, as I only had an hour and 15 minutes to change trains, but the Eurostar requires check-in by 30 minutes in advance of your train departing at a minimum.  So I really only had 45 minutes.  Since the taxi had gotten stuck in traffic and taken nearly 30 minutes when I took it the time before, I decided to try to see if one of the old Paris Metro tickets (from a leftover carne) I had in my possession still worked.  Amazingly it did!  So I rode the No. 4 line straight up to Gare du Nord, making it in a flat 20 minutes.  And then any further concerns I had about checking in on time were assuaged I got to the Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord, I was quite surprised when this official lady, upon realising I didn't understand her, just took my bags and walked off with them!  I rushed to follow along, and eventually realised that she was taking me to the front of every line so I didn't have to stand and wait for people, and she even carried my bags all of the way to a chair in the waiting room afterwards.  How nice, eh?  The entire trip was like that...me not understanding all of the people trying to be super-nice to me!  

Gare du Nord

Also great was that I'd booked First Class on the Eurostar, to make sure I had room for my leg, and I think the extra £10-20 was ENTIRELY worth it.  Particularly as each time I got to the train, I hadn't had time to eat beforehand, but they served both breakfast and dinner on each of my trips.  You have no idea how wonderful it is when you're absolutely starving, to have some very nice staff people feed you!  (Although very funny on the Eurostar, as I'd FINALLY gotten into saying "sil vous plait" and "merci" to people, so when I said that to this woman and she asked me another question in French, I had to ask if she spoke English. To which it turned out that SHE was actually English, but pointed out, "You spoke to me in French first!")

My First Class meal on the Eurostar

Got back to London, where it was pouring rain, and made my way back to my flat, where this girl, the daughter of someone my mother knows from through her investment club, was there.  She's coming to London for a two-week English course as part of her PhD, but she couldn't get into the dorms until tomorrow, and being a broke PhD student, didn't really have the money for a hotel.  She came in on a red-eye flight Sunday morning, but since I wouldn't be there, I'd mailed some keys to her.  She was so grateful and repeatedly thanking me, it was almost embarrassing, but I was glad it had all worked out for her.  She was very nice, and we only stayed up long enough for me to have some dinner and then crash into bed. She left the following morning, so it was really a very quick visit (and therefore easy to host!)


I had promised the Tall South African on Friday that I would call him once I was home, but missed him, and we had a few back-and-forth calls before he caught me.  Although he was distracted by something else, making me wonder once again, "Why on earth do you call sometimes?"  Really I should just give up on calling him, and let him always call me instead, as he's much more fun to talk to then....

Overall, a great weekend away, although boy was I glad to be home!