Reims; that angel statue is smiling because she drank a lot of champagne.

Just don't do it. It's forbidden.

I think I could live in Reims. They specialize in the production of these little pink biscuits that are incorporated somehow into every meal you eat within the city limits. They also specialize in the production of champagne. "You are meant to dip your pretty biscuit into your champagne," the tour guide at the Mumm factory told me. I think it was the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me. There is also a ridiculous amount of history in Reims, which has a cathedral the façade of which, when placed next to Notre Dame's, looks the same. Don't worry, because if you closely scrutinize the rose windows and gargoyles you can tell them apart. Like a mother with her twins. Unfortunately I will always remember the Reims cathedral as being bitterly cold even on a warm day, but churches are supposed to be cold and oppressive.

Deep in the heart of Mumm.

But history, history has really vomited all over Reims. Clovis was baptized in the cathedral (I can't imagine how he tolerated the cold--apparently there was some snafu with the procurement of the holy oil and Clovis was naked in the baptismal font for a good twenty minutes until, fortuitously, a dove brought some from heaven), and most of the statues in the city were either decapitated by revolutionaries or were in danger of being melted down by the Nazis. The foundation of the cathedral was saved from being shelled during WWII because all the villagers banded together to pile sand bags thirty high. They probably hydrated with champagne. Also, on the way out to the champagne factories there is a Roman ruin. Just sitting there. There is a bus stop there. The road that traverses the city is huge and awkward and impossible to drive on. Why? Because it is a Roman road, of course.

Casualties.

Because attempts have been frequently made throughout history to destroy Reims, some American intervention has been necessary to preserve it, leading to a consensus among my travel chums and I upon leaving that "we built this city." Rockefeller was responsible for rebuilding large parts of the cathedral, which is why it looks like UChicago, and the bibliotheque is "Carnegie Bibliotheque," because Carnegia built it. A lot of these restorations occurred during the Arts and Crafts period in America, so Reims has an odd and incredibly beautiful assortment of art deco accents, which I enthusiastically documented to show the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. I did find the enormous cuckoo clock in one corner of the cathedral slightly out of place, but then I had some champagne and it made more sense.

Sullivan much?