On fête le Tram!

Finally the 3 years of construction in this town has paid off, and this weekend was the big opening of the tramway in Reims.  Unfortunately they've only built one tram line out of the 5 that will be built by 2030, but at least the construction's done in my neck of the woods.  The great news is that this ONE tram line that they decided to build happens to go from right in front of my house, to the train station, the city, then to the university where I work, and then to the other train station.  Basically the only places I need to go.  Not sure how on Earth I got so lucky but I'm just happy that my life is going to be a lot easier!  No more unreliable buses.  

For the tram weekend they had lots of festivities, including a really cool fireworks show last night, and a "surprise visitor" which ended up being a giant mechanical spider that climbed the cathedral and walked around the city.  Having the mechanical spider actually BLOCKED the tram line half the day yesterday, so I'm not really sure how this is related to the whole tram inauguration day, but whatever.  It was pretty funny seeing a giant spider walking around the city, kind of made me feel like I was in Ghostbusters or something.  

I've been trying to climb the cathedral of Reims for the past 2 weeks, but every time I try to go I get rejected.  Only 18 people are allowed to go up every hour on the hour, and only on the weekends!  I decided to take advantage of this tram inauguration and sneak up the cathedral on a day where everyone else was distracted.  The visit was really cool, we got to walk all the way around the cathedral on the top to get a great view of Reims, plus a closer look at all of the details on the top of the building.  It's really amazing how much more I am starting to LIKE Reims now that spring is here!

impressive view from the top

les fleurs de lys

so many little statues and details

my house is straight ahead, after the line of red buildings if you click on the full size pic

look on the left, the itsy bitsy spider slowly creeping up the cathedral 

the million euro mechanical spider who will be staying with us until October

The town of reims voted, and PINK trams won the ballot.  I think it was mostly women voting?

the sign in the new trams.  you'd think they could at least learn how to spell goodbye right before printing this and posting it on every door.