Champagne

So the last week has been a little hectic, so I apologize for the long blog break. I'm currently sitting in the Sciences Po dining hall/lounge area. There is a group of students arguing about politics, and I'm judging them for being a bunch of nerds. Then I remember comm school and how all we talk about in our free time is business....I immediately stop judging.

I had my first higher level French class today. My professor asked for my name and immediately realized I was an American girl. She then explains to me that she has barely any guys in her class and most everyone is American. I might as well just give up now. She then hands me an assignment for a two page paper about liberties and laughter. I am clearly confused, so she shows me an article about this famous caricature that caused controversy in 2006. When I'm still not getting it, she gets mad that I don't know about this major event in politics, which furthers her hate for ignorant American females. She then invites me to the class dinner at her house in March. If we were dating, this would be defined as sending "mixed signals".

I went to get a book from the library on Monday for my presentation next week. The librarian informs me that it will take three days to receive the book. I then ask her if the book is checked out by someone else. She responds plainly that the book is in the building and available but it takes about three days for them to go get it. I ask my teacher what I should do about this, since I am supposed to present the book next week. She tells me that I can pick a random chapter and present that one, and if I decide I like it then I'll just write my final paper on it. Pick a random chapter to read from an economics book? No worries, it's only worth 40% of my grade.
The other students just write down everything they want to say for their presentations and read off their papers to the class. Then the teacher claps and smiles. I feel like I am on another planet. I guess they're practicing for the day when they present pre-written speeches to large groups of audiences at their political acceptance ceremonies.

On a non school related note, we went to Reims (Champagne country) last weekend. It was absolutely incredible. We started at this museum where the Germans signed the surrender terms during WWII. You actually get to go into the room where all of the officers outlined the supplies and territory agreements. The original maps are still on the wall. We all got goosebumps as soon as we walked in. It really was amazing.

Reims also has a huge cathedral in its center. I had earlier asked a woman at the museum how to get to it, and she laughed at me. I didn't understand why until we started walking and you can see the cathedral tower over the rest of the town. You would have to try to miss it.

I also had to stop in a store to try get warm socks, since my shoes were falling apartment and there was snow everywhere. I then stood by the door and took my shoes off to put on my new purchase while the entire store staff stared at me. Gulfem's shirt then set off the security detectors, and the guard made her take off her jacket and sweater so he could make sure she wasn't shoplifting. It didn't help that it was freezing outside, so she had about 4 layers to go through. It turns out she forgot to take the little magnetic thing off of her turtleneck, so the guard went and got a scissor and cut it off for her. I'm not gonna lie, the whole thing was pretty amusing.

After de-icing ourselves in a pub for lunch, we went to search for places to tour les caves (where champagne is made) and go for a tasting. We started at Veuve Clicquot but they were only open with reservations. They called another vineyard across the street and found us an opening for an English tour twenty minutes later. We rushed down the street, and went to Pommery. I don't really know how to describe Pommery, so I'm going to have to just post pictures or something. If you've never taken a tour of where Champagne is made, it is aged in deep limestone pits underground. When the owner of Pommery died, his wife took over the business. She loved art, so she had artists come sculpt beautiful portraits of Dionysus and Bacchus in the wall. They also hold modern art exhibitions in les caves which we were fortunate enough to see while we took our tour. The artist was very strange, and just put random objects around the different rooms. For example, he put a grocery store sized cart of nutella in one room. The tour guide explained that this was to show everyday objects in a new point of view. She said no one would ever have that much nutella in their cabinet. I then told her that the artist should see the amount of nutella me and the other girls keep in our cabinets, and he may change his mind. Another room had palm trees with Christmas lights. I tried really hard to get it. Art majors, help me out here. We kept walking and we found rooms and rooms of aging champagne. One group of bottles has been aging since 1921. Americans were in prohibition at that time!

After the tour we got to taste champagne. Our guide told us that you taste it with all five of your senses. You listen to the bubbles, smell the champagne, look at the bubbles (you can tell the age of the champagne by looking at it...but i can't remember how), and you taste the champagne. Yep, four senses. Diana and I were still looking for the fifth, but then we got over it. I got a rose champagne (which gets its flavor from the red wines in it), and we all got the vintage. The flavor of the champagne is based on how long it spends aging and what times of wines are used to make it. The vintage champagne tastes different each time it is made, which is one of its special characteristics. It also has a stronger flavor since it has been aging longer which means that you must taste it after the others or else you won't be able to taste anything else. Steven told me to ask what kind of wines they use to make Strawberry Andre. Most exciting of all, the bathrooms had those super powerful hand dryers like they have at Boylen. Just kidding...kinda.

We headed back to the train station, and all bought potato chips for the ride home. I'm still determined to try all of the weird flavors, so I picked out Bolognaise. It was definitely different, but I think that was the end of my phase and I will now return to sour cream and onion. By the way, bring your own salt and vinegar because they don't make those here! Just a heads up for future travelers.

Well I've sufficiently wasted enough time for today. I would say "a tout a l'heure" but I found out in French class that you only say it when you're definitely going to talk to someone later that day. A simple bonne journee will have to do.