My Beaujolais Nouveau Story

This morning French wine lovers are waking up with a hangover. Last night at one minute past midnight the newest batch of wine from Burgundy's Beaujolais region was released. Around the world people hold Beaujolais Nouveau parties to celebrate the occasion. And to start the festivities the celebrant yells out 'Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!' ('The New Beaujolais has arrived!')

This leads to my Beaujolais Nouveau story. Everytime I hear the word 'Beaujolais' this is what comes to mind. Ten years ago (it's been that long already?) I spent my second stint living in France. This time, as with the first, I got by without a visa. Instead I stayed in the country by doing back to back 3-month tourist visas by leaving the country every three months. Nobody really checked, but I didn't want to chance it. And it gave me a chance to travel a bit.

It was getting around the time that my previous 3-month visa was up and I needed to leave the country. The school, where my fiancée at the time was finishing up her studies, advertised a weekend bus trip to London. So I signed up. The night of the bus departure the guy (Guy) who rans the school cafet (café) decided to have a little Beaujolais Nouveau party. He served bad Beaujolais and the school horn band came and played. There was quite a bit of merriment with swing dancing, drinking, and French hors d'oeuvres.

It came time to leave and as those of us who were leaving went down to the bus I noticed that most of the others were first or second year students. Most were away from home the first time and they were very inebriated. As the bus took off everyone was singing, laughing, making loud comments... Suddenly from the back of the bus someone starts screaming 'UN SAC!! UN SAC!!!' Almost instantaneously there was that distinctive human roar and a loud splashing sound as the aisle filled up with semi-digested wine and party snacks. With that, a very astute student jumps up and screams 'Le Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrive!!!'