Le Cordon Bleu

Hello all! Sorry I've gotten behind, once again. These past couple of weeks have basically been the weeks for midterms and all my presentations for the semester. So now that I am finally finished with the craziness, here I am for an update :)

So on the subject of school, it's a lot different than school at Alabama, and in the States in general. I think our teachers realize that we're foreign exchange students and we're also here to have a good time, so they don't seem to be too strict (but of course that doesn't stop me from trying to stick to my perfectionist ways when it comes to school!). One guy in my language class completely didn't show up for an exam, or the week after the exam, but they let him take the test home with him when he did finally show up! Yea that wouldn't happen so much at UA! It's kind of weird not being stressed out with MIS group projects in this point in the semester. As far as the presentation I mentioned go, I am so so thankful for my CBH presentation training! All my classmates were so nervous and worried about making/giving their presentations, but after presenting so much at home, I really wasn't too worried about presenting here (even though they were in French.) All my presentations seemed to be well received by my professors and of course they were all amazed by the "CBH Bar" in my PowerPoints lol.

So besides boring school stuff, I've been having lots of fun adventures lately! My time here is drawing to a close (only 4 weeks left!) so I am trying to make the most of it!

I guess first thing that happened these past few weeks, was Halloween. While it isn't celebrated quite as much here as it is in the States, there are definitely people that seem to be catching on! I would say it's probably more for my age people though instead of children, because if I had I young kid I wouldn't trust Parisian strangers to be giving them candy either! I think it's just too big of a city for that kind for the same level of trick-or-treating to go on. I did dress up and went out with some friends to celebrate though!

My biggest adventure these past few weeks, and by far my favorite thing I have done since being here, was to attend a pastry class at Le Cordon Bleu! Those of you that know me know I have a passion for baking, so I was absolutely in heaven to be in a professional kitchen learning to make croissants from a chef that pretty much fits the stereotypical image of a French chef perfectly!

The class started bright and early at 8:30 and lasted until 3 in the afternoon. We learned how to make croissants, pain au chocolat, and brioche. Then the chef also showed us variations that use the same dough . While the class only lasted 6 hours, it would take a lot longer to  replicate the results at home. They already had the dough made for us when we got there because it has to chill over night. So really the process would take a good 2 days to do, but I definitely intend to at least try it once I get back home! Here are some pictures from the day:

Brioche "en tête" The circle in the middle is called the head. The chef made sure to tell us to make sure they were well attached so that our brioche wouldn't be like Louis XVI :)

Layered effect on the croissant dough. It's necessary to fold it many times and re-roll it out.

                                              Julia Child and I :)

                                               Braided Brioche

Making Choco-suisse : Croissant dough, pastry cream, and mini chocolate chips.

                                      My finished croissants!

                                            Le Chef and I :)

Kouign Amann: Croissant dough but instead of being rolled out with flour it is rolled out with more and more sugar each time and filled with apples. So delicious!

Besides my Cordon Bleu class, I have been doing "tourist days" with my friend Debbie. We're trying to make sure we get everything in before we leave. So last Saturday, we went to Père Lachaise cemetery, and la Grande Mosquée. The cemetery was suprisingly really cool! Besides getting to see famous people's headstones like Jim Morrison, Chopin, and Edith Piaf, it was just a really cool place in general! There were so many ornate tombs that were quite pretty. Unfortunately Oscar Wilde's grave was closed, so we may have to revisit it before leaving.

                                                   Chopin

                                                 Jim Morrison

                                                   Edith Piaf

After the cemetery, we headed over to the mosque. We didn't really look around on the inside because it was super crowded, but we got what we really wanted: mint tea! Normally I am not a fan of tea, unless it is really sweet, but this was actually really good! It was sweet, so really it tasted like sweet tea that's hot with a little mint flavor. We also tried one of the pastries there, but it was a little to nutty for us.

                                               Nuttiness

                                          Debbie and I with our tea :)

Besides the touristy, Parisian things, Debbie also introduced me to a new store! It's really an American store, but the closest one is 130 miles from home in Alabama (yes I looked lol), so I feel like it's still ok to go here! It's called Lush (http://www.lushusa.com/shop). It has all sorts of wonderful beauty/bath products! I am very excited to go back and pay it another visit sometime soon.

This weekend (11/18-20) has also been very fun filled! Friday I went to see the new Twilight with some friends. As far as the Twilight movies go, it was pretty good! But of course it still doesn't come close to the book. I know my boyfriend is very excited I went ahead and went to see it here lol. I also went to the oldest bakery in Paris (over 200 years old) for a tour! I was amazed how much they still do manually, like they have to keep a constant watch on the temperature instead of using an automated proofing box like we did at Le Cordon Bleu. It was really cool to meet the baker and have him show us around!

                                           Cute pig cookies

         Bread fresh out of the oven. You can see the steam coming out of it!

Saturday, my friends Debbie, Amber, and I decided to celebrate our 21st birthdays since they are all  Dec-Feb and we wont be together to celebrate them. We drank the wine that I bought in the Loire Valley (in hopes of bringing home, but US customs says that's not ok since I'm not 21) at the Eiffel Tower. We also went on a boat tour on the Seine and went and checked out the Christmas festival that just opened on the Champs Elysées. The Christmas festival was so exciting! It has all sorts of jewelry, food, drinks, souvenirs, and of course lights and music! I think the plan is to go to a new one every weekend because it was really really cool! It was a little overwhelming seeing everything the first time, but I definitely intend to go back and buy some more Christmas gifts, assuming there is room in my luggage! Here are a few pictures from our evening:


                                       Punch de Noel. Delicious!

                                                   Ferris Wheel

                                    Lights and a train for the kiddies!

Well that's pretty much everything up to date! The next excitement I am looking forward to is going to Italy the first weekend in December! We're going to Venice and plan on eating lots of Italian food and riding a gondola  so I am pretty pumped! As of today, I only have 4 weeks left to go! While I am definitely sad that I will be leaving the friends I have made here, I am getting really pumped to come home and see everyone! I'll try and update at least once more before I leave though.

As always, thanks for reading!
Callie

Les Vacances

Hello again! I'm actually posting another post in a reasonable amount of time, because this week has been fall break! 

I originally had plans to go to Morocco with my program during the break, but the dates of the trip had to be moved to some issues booking the plane tickets. Unfortunately I can't go during the new dates because I had already scheduled a group presentation :( 

So because I thought I had plans, I didn't look into going to other countries during the break, and when I did find out, most of the tickets to places had already shot up in price, so I just stayed and hung out in Paris this week! I mean there are definitely worse places to be lol

I kicked of the break with a good start! Some friends and I went to the Salon du Chocolat, which is an event, entirely devoted to chocolate, where all sorts of different vendors from around the world come! There were also demonstrations and exhibitions like a fashion show. Let me tell you, I have never seen so much chocolate in my life! There were mounds of it, fountains of it, drinks with it, basically chocolate in every form you could possibly imagine! I definitely hope heaven is something like that! 

So while it was definitely awesome to see so much chocolate, there were a TON of people there to see it! It was truly difficult to move around having to push your way through people to navigate the different booths. So because of that, I really didn't buy all that much chocolate, but we still got to taste a good bit! I did buy some dark chocolate orange and Grand Marnier truffles to bring back to my family though! Here are some pictures from the event so you can appreciate the enormous amounts of chocolate we got to see/ smell/ taste :)

             Les petits negres: Marshmallow filled chocolate. Delicious!

                                                   Truffles

            "Would you marry me?" For this delicious chocolate, absolutely! lol

                                            Chocolate Eiffel Tower

                                           Chocolate Flowers

Sunday I got a chance to visit the Hillsong church here with my friend Debbie. It was really really awesome, well once we finally found it! We got lost and missed most of the opening set of worship, but once we found it, it was great! They translated the service into both English and French and it was cool to hear some song I knew, except the French version!

I've also done a lot of shopping and exploring this week. We went and wandered around Montmartre, the Saint-Michel area, as well as one of the big malls. We also randomly ended up in a bar that is apparently famous! Harry's Bar. They have pendants from colleges all around the U.S. I actually found out it was famous watching an episode of the Gilmore Girls where the go to Paris and that's where Lorelai says she wants to go lol. I was so excited to see a little taste of home!

                                                   Roll Tide!

So besides various excursions this week, I have also had some excitement with my host family. So while I've been here I have been living with a mom, her 24 year old son, and a girl that's here doing an internship from Nice. The mom, however, has another apartment so she doesn't really live there all the time and when she does come just sleeps on a blow up mattress in the living room. Because of this, she leaves every weekend and her son throws parties. Now sometimes I'm up for a good party as much as the next person, but sometimes it's 4am and I just want to be able to sleep! There were also some other issues there, but I'll save you my complaints and just say that overall it was not a situation I was happy with or what I thought I signed up for. For those that know me, you know it takes a lot for me to want to do conflict. But after the party that lasted until 9:30 am this weekend, I finally went and talked to my program about my concerns. That was Monday, then Thursday they called me in and told me they had a new host family for me and I moved Friday! My program told me just to not tell the 1st host mother that I was moving and they would deal with her anger, so that was fun trying to pack all the enormous amounts of stuff I brought in secret. But thankfully it all worked out. I'm really excited about my new host family and so far they have been wonderful!

 

One more piece of excitement from this week, in case we're not Facebook friends, I ran into Robin Williams at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore this week! It was really surreal! I looked, like surely that can't be him, then looked again, and then he spoke and it was like WOAH that's Robin Williams! Turns out he is here on his honeymoon. It's definitely true that you never know what/who you're going to see in Paris!

Thanks for reading!

Callie

Le Faux Football

Hello all! Sorry, yet again, for the delay in updates! Paris has definitely been keeping me busy! Since my last post, I have had quite a few adventures!


First, I got a chance to go to the Opera house (the one that Phantom of the Opera was based on) with my program to see a ballet, well actually 2 ballets. It was a production of Phedre and Psyche, combined into one evening with an intermission. I don't know about you, but I'm not very versed in Greek mythology once you get past about Hercules, so I was definitely a little confused. But despite not totally understanding the story line, it was really beautiful performance and really cool just to be in such an elegant atmosphere! I will say, though, that whoever built this opera house must not have anticipated anyone over about 5'2" coming to visit because there was no where near enough leg room! But we all worked it out and kind of sat at angle so that hopefully our knees didn't run into the people in front of us too terribly much. Here are a few pictures from the evening:

After the Opera, the next adventure was a "football" game, a.k.a soccer. This was about the closest I was going to get to the atmosphere of my beloved Crimson Tide on game day, so I was pretty excited about it! Getting there on the metro was kind of a nightmare; I don't think I have ever been in contact with so many bodies at once! People kept pushing their way on at each metro stop we came to until we were literally crammed in like sardines. That's definitely the most crowded I have seen the metro so far. But anyways, after I finally got there, the game was really cool! The stadium was HUGE, even compared to Bryant Denny! I must admit that I don't really know anything about soccer (I had to ask if there were periods, quarters, or halves) but it was cool to see everyone so hyped up! I ended up leaving a little early, because I really didn't want a repeat of the ride there, but what I did see was pretty cool.

The weekend after the soccer game was my final big excursion with my program, a trip to the Loire Valley! This was definitely my favorite part of the trip so far! I mean what girl doesn't want to live their childhood dream of being a princess? :) We left bright and early (7:30am!) on Saturday morning and rode directly to the first castle on the agenda, Blois. Blois is really cool because it is composed of 4 totally different architectural styles because it was built in phases by different people. It was also really cool because the inside was restored in the 1800s, so it still had a sense of luxury, but it was also cool that the tour guide pointed out the little inaccuracies of the restoration.

                                      Ornate Celings

                 
                                      Sitting on the throne :)

After a lunch in the market surrounding Blois, we headed to Chenonceau. This was definitely my favorite castle! It was the most "princess-ey" looking. It was also really nice inside because they had it decorated with gorgeous arrangements of flowers that smelled amazing. They also had decorated the kitchen with all sorts of pots and pans from that era. For those of you that know me, you know that I was in heaven seeing all that pretty kitchen equipment! Outside the castle there were also some pretty gardens as well as a small maze that was off in the forest a little bit. My friend accurately said that it felt like we were in Ever After!

After Chenonceau we went to a winery where we got to taste lots of delicious wine. I had never really tried wine before, besides the kind we've used to cook with, so this was quite different. I'm not sure if they just tasted better as I tried more, but I actually liked most all of the ones we tried! I bought bottle of a really sweet one to bring back to my family :)

So that was Saturday of the trip. After a nice night in a hotel, we got up Sunday and went to Chambord. Chambord was built as a hunting lodge for the king and his buddies to go to and is pretty cool because the top of it is designed to look like a skyline. The most famous thing about Chambord is the double spiral staircase inside that is thought to have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The tour guide told us that the staircase was useful because the king at the time, Francois 1er, was a big ladies man, so he could send one mistress down and have another one come up at the same time and they would never run into each other on the staircase! At Chambord, we got to row about around the river/moat and also got to ride bikes around it. I think that was definitely my favorite part was the bikes because it was great weather and just perfectly picturesque! 

Close to the castle was a famous cookie factory that we also got to visit! We tasted several of their famous types of cookies that have been around for hundreds of years along with some Chambord liqueur. One of the ways they told us to try it was to dip an orange flavored cookie into the Chambord to let it soak some up. Let me just tell you: YUM! I am getting so many ideas for things to bake when I get back from this trip!   I am almost to the half way point in the trip now. While I'm enjoying myself, I am definitely happy that the time is going by so that I will be able to come home to see my family, friends, and boyfriend! As always, thanks for reading!

Callie

L'école commence

Hello all! As the absence of blog posts suggests, I have been having a very busy two weeks! Since my last post, I have been doing lots of touristy things and I also started my classes last week!

I got to go to Versailles with my program which was really fun. It was incredible to see the extravagance that gushed out of every nook and cranny of the palace! The gardens were gorgeous, and we also got to see the Grand and Petit Trianon. The Petit Trianon is where Marie Antoinette lived. In comparison with the main palace, it wasn't really all that impressive! There was a collection on display though of clothes inspired by clothes from that era. Famous designers such as Chanel made all sorts of interpretations (which unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of) some being fairly accurate and others a very loose interpretation (a couple reminded me of something Lady Gaga might wear to a performance!) There was even a houndstooth dress! Roll Tide :)

                                          Gardens at Versailles

After Versailles, my parents arrived here Sept. 23 and stayed until yesterday morning (Oct 3rd). They were here celebrating their 25th anniversary. It was really great to see some familiar faces here! We did all sorts of touring! We visited the Louvre, Notre-Dame, Saint Chapelle, Sacre Coeur, the Moulin Rouge, l'Arc de Triomphe, and Musee d'Orsay. We also did a river boat cruise down the Seine, and went to the top of the Eiffel Tower! Here are a few pics from our adventures:

                                          Sacre Coeur

                                           La Tour Eiffel

                                                Arc de Triomphe

                                          Saint Chapelle

                                    At the very top of the Eiffel Tower

At the same time we were doing all this touring, we also did some really good eating! Lol. I think my favorite was this HUGE salad that was really unique, but really tasty! It was lettuce, some kind of tomatoes, ham, goat cheese, and thin fried potatoes. Interesting combo, but quite delicious! We also had cheesecake dinner night one evening where we got 3 different slices of cheesecake and rotated so that we all got to try all three :)

                                          Salad at Le Relais Gascon

Besides touring and eating yummy food, I also started classes! It's nice to finally be doing something productive, as most of my Bama friends had already been in school for almost a month! All my classes are in French, and all of them are 3 hours long. It's definitely very different. While I've always done more than the minimum 12 hours to be a full time student, here the minimum is 18 hours. I am definitely excited to improve my French, but those long classes are definitely pushing my brain! I think I am most excited about my phonetics class to really improve my pronunciation.

This past weekend I went on a weekend excursion to Normandy and Mont Saint Michel. It was definitely a good trip but very sobering. We went to the WWII museum and then to Omaha where the American cemetery is and then to Pont du Hoc, a site where there are still craters from bombs and some bunkers from WWII. After that we toured an apple farm and got to taste some of their products from apple juice to up to a creamy apple liqueur (they said it was some what like Bailey's). Sunday was spent at Mont Saint Michel, which was quite gorgeous!

                                              American Cemetery

                                           Mont Saint Michel

                                          View from Pont du Hoc

This week it finally feels like I'm getting into the swing of things with school now that my parents aren't here to do touristy things with, which is has it's positives and negatives. I definitely miss them! I do still have a lot of exciting things coming up though, like tonight I am going to see a ballet at l'Opera Garnier (the one Phantom of the Opera was based off of!) with my program! I'll be sure to update with pictures from that soon. Thanks for reading!

Callie