Wednesdays used to be my favorite day since I didn’t have class. Now Wednesdays are my favorite, but because I only have two classes. On top of that, my first class was at 1:30. This meant maximum productivity (or procrastination) on Wednesday mornings depending on my mood. This morning was a mix of both.
I got up around 9:30. My biggest task to get done was studying for my French quiz today. After breakfast, I immediately started to work on that. After about an hour of studying, I felt prepared and dove back into bed for a Netflix binge. Binge might be an overstatement here, because I only watched one episode of the Sopranos. I had to make time to eat lunch before leaving. Lunch today was the usual sandwich, apple and oreos. I really get into phases with meals.
After a quick cleanup I headed to my French class. The quiz was the first thing we did in class. I felt very good about it and should get a good grade. The rest of class was spent on direct and indirect pronouns. I had already taught this to myself a few weeks ago, but the extra practice was nice. The rest of class went by normally.
Next, I had AC circuits tutorial. We were doing some problems with high and low pass filters. I won’t go into any of the details, but I felt pretty good about all the exercises. I hope this will translate into success with tomorrow’s lab, but knowing my previous track record, it won’t.
Just like that, class was over for the day. Following my usual habit, I went home to change my clothes, then headed to the gym. Since I didn’t have a host dinner tonight, I took my time at the gym while I did a back and triceps day, followed by an ab workout.
For my final paper in my French culture class, I am writing about French identity. We are supposed to interview people, and I asked one of the employees at the gym if I could interview him. We have our own handshake, so I figured he would say yes. I assumed correctly.
When I got home I showered and made myself dinner. There were no surprises as I ate rice and sausage for the sixth time. I still enjoyed it, so that’s a good sign at least. I spent the next hour after dinner relaxing until it was time to head to the BU office. The BU program had arranged a wine tasting event for our group tonight. This was one of those times where you realize how different Europe is than the United States.
First off, our school was providing copious amounts of free wine to the students. This greatly contrasts the many alcohol education seminars I had to sit through during Freshman orientation. On top of that, this was on a school night. Even further, about two-thirds of the group had an 8 AM final the next day for biology. Though from what I noticed, none of my classmates in bio seemed to care.
The man running the tasting owned a nearby wine shop in Grenoble. He brought six variations of wine, a huge meat and cheese board, and many baguettes. He spent some time in the beginning explaining how to smell and taste the wine properly. He also gave us a map of France with the different wine regions and names.
Here is what the map looked like.
Jonathan and I helping carry the food from the man’s car
We had pen and paper to describe the wines. I don’t remember the store-owner’s name, but he will call him Jean to make my descriptions easier. Jean handed out glasses and filled them with a mysterious bottle. The bottle was covered in an opaque sleeve, so we couldn’t see what type it was. He told us to right down notes on what we saw, smelled and tasted. Jean really emphasized keeping our notes private, that way we wouldn’t be influenced by what others wrote.
This was nice because it made it easier to be creative in your descriptions. It was funny because I would write down a somewhat stupid description, then a bunch of people would have written the same thing. For example, I described one wine as “like biting into a fresh, crisp apple”. No one else used that exact phrase, but a lot people described it with “crisp” and “like an apple”.
Here is a series of photos of Nick and I at the tasting, each appropriately captioned:
- Wine tasting is a serious business and amateurs should be made aware: smiling is strictly forbidden at tastings and strongly detracts from the experience.
2. A novice mistake is to simply swallow the wine. Any seasoned veteran will understand the three important steps: Absorb, Understand, Admire.
3. When describing the wine, it is too colloquial to describe the wine using English. True wine connoisseurs adjust their language to that of the region the wine comes from.
By the fourth glass of wine, we had kind of given up on the sophisticated part of wine tasting. Our instructor Jean said the best way to enjoy wine is when drinking and conversing among friends, no matter what you’re talking about. This part of the wine tasting got interesting, because quite a few of my classmates were drunk. Each glass really only was half filled, but some of my classmates had very low tolerances. I was not drunk by any means, but definitely was having a jolly time by the sixth glass.
After the tasting, I can officially say that I like white wine much more than red. Besides a few fancy words I learned, I got too distracted by the end to really learn much about wine. After the tasting was over, Jonathan, Nick, Harry and I were ready to continue our drinking quest. The four of us headed to La Nat’ for a pint, along with the complimentary sausage and peanuts. We only stayed for one drink since Jonathan and Nick had the exam tomorrow.
I fell into a deep slumber as soon as I got home, the type that can only be induced by drinking copious amounts of wine.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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