Adventures, Language Intensive Program and My First Winery!

Salut tout le monde! "Salut" is a very informal "hello" in France! After the day spent traveling around the Atlantic, a bunch of us Californians went out to a British pub for a few drinks! My first real night life experience in bars! We had gone out for a few drinks during the first week but never very late and never to anywhere all that interesting-tonight was the night for a real European adventure-and an adventure we sure did have! We went from grabbing dinner in a cafe, to having a drink at a bar/cafe, to sipping wine out of the bottle (I know, real classy) on the fleuve (river), to finally figuring out how to get to a night club that supposedly had good music.  We all made our way from the fleuve to the nearest tram stop and hopped on (with a few stragglers getting left behind because the tram was too full, of course) and headed toward an area of town I had not visited yet. We ended up getting off the tram too early and having to walk much further than necessary to finally end up at this weird looking building on a very dark street! Anyway, it ended up the club we were going to and the night turned into a lot of fun consisting of dancing and jumping around with all my friends from the program.  It really was fun, until about 3:30 am when I decided I was tired, wanted to go home, but couldn't.  The trams in Bordeaux stop running on the weekend from 12:30 am til 5:20 am.  So, it was either pay for a taxi back to the awful dorms(yes that is what I'll be calling them from here on out) or wait til the trams started and wander around Bordeaux. At the time, waiting for the trams seemed like it would be "fun" so Molly, another friend of ours, and myself decided to head out on our adventure.  About a block from the club we realized it was cold, and we actually were extremely tired. Uh oh... No worries, it basically turned into 2 hours of us talking to people standing on their apartment balconies, speed walking away from weirdos and sitting at tram stops whenever our feet needed a break, which was often! Finally at about 5:15 am, a tram pulled up and we stayed on it until we arrived home (about 45 minutes later)! Ugh what a night-only in Europe right?! When I get home and went to check my computer, Austin and our friend happened to be hanging out so I got to skype with them and tell them all about my night-of course they were surprised to see me online at 6:30 am my time, and even more surprised to see that i wasn't just waking up, I was just going to sleep! The nest day the whole building slept til about 2 pm and pretty much just lazed around- we did have school the nest day, after all! When doing something like this, it's hard to prioritize school in the same way that I normally do but I think once I get a normal routine it will much easier to focus.

The following day, Monday, was the beginning of my two week period of "Language Intensive Program" (ILP) where I would be going to class from 8:30 am-12:30 am 4 days a week with one day a week where I went an additional 3 hours from 1:30 pm-4:30 pm.  The classes were a little hard to stay awake in-because it was mostly just grammar and historical information at 8:30 am- and I am definitely not a morning person! The first few days were okay also because we had our first trip to a winery to look forward to! On my 2nd Thursday in France, we went to the "Domain de Malagar" (the old home of French writer Francois Mauriac) and to the winery "Raymond Lafon". First we went to the Domain de Malagar and had a wonderful view of the Bordeaux wine region...

After wandering around the grounds of the house and soaking in all the green luscious land, we took a tour of the old house (full of it's century old furniture), well as a small museum that was next door to the house.  The museum was full of old newspapers and books that Mauriac wrote during World War II- it was all very interesting!

We then left the Domain de Malagar and headed to the Raymon Lafond Winery!  The winery was only about 40 minutes away and when we got there everyone was very anxious to see what these Bordeaux wineries are really all about!  First we were introduced to the manager of the winery, an adorable man who had lived in America for 10 years and knew perfect English but decided that we needed to practice French so he did our tour in french! I wish my french was better at this time because I know I missed a lot of really interesting information simply because my comprehension is not very strong ( and definitely wasn't during my first 2 weeks here!). I did learn a few interesting things though-the grapes growing at this particular winery are very sweet because they make Sauterne wine ( a very sweet desert wine) here, grape bushes should never be overcrowded because then the grapes don't get equal access to nutrition from the soil or the sun.  I also learned that it it takes almost 2 entire bushes of grapes to produce one good bottle of wine! That's a lot of grapes for just one bottle! After the tour we were able to go into the winery and taste a glass of the famous Sauterne! It was the sweetest thing I have ever drank! It tasted like honey and spice and sugar and was exploding with flavor! I could definitely tell the difference between an expensive wine and the cheap wines I've always tried! This particular wine is about $40 a bottle (a little more than the Two buck chuck from Trader Joes)! After the tasting we were then taken to the cellar to see where they age the wine.  The cellar was so beautiful with large pristine looking barrels filled with aging wine! The room was a cold but somewhat comfortable temperature that is ideal for this type of wine to age in-it is a very precise process, apparently!

 

While at the winery, the manager/owner showed us the large bottles of wine they make for special occasions that cost upwards up $1500!! Special occasions indeed- until next time, mes amis! Au Revoir!