July 3 and 4

July 3:

Today we just had class as normal, nothing really interesting happened. We did find out that we will have a surprise tomorrow in class, but you must wait to find out in tomorrows journal.

July 4:

Happy Independence Day!!! So it was a bit interesting celebrating the fourth of july in France, but none the less it makes for good stories in the future. The surprise for cross-cultural communications class this morning was a wine tasting from an expert. It was really exciting but a bit strange because it was 10 am. Wine for breakfast is a bit strange but apparently its the best time to taste it because your mouth hasnt been polluted with other types of drinks, food, and flavors. We were taught how to look at the coloring, smell with the first nose, the swirl, then smell again, then sip and swish in the mouth, then spit it out and figure out the different tastes. Edward, the wine expert brought some foods from his region for us to try. These foods included a really smelly cheese, french bread, cheese puffs, ham with basil and jelly, and sweet bread. Our class was pretty tired and happy after class and as 98% of the class is asian rosy cheeks were everywhere.

For French class today we had a treasure hunt which was not all that interesting nor was it easy. We ended up having to run all over the entire campus to find letters that were posted on walls, tables, chairs, desks, and shelves with the help of clues that were written entirely in french. I shall not discuss much about the treasure hunt because my partner and I are a bit bitter about how the whole thing was done.

As it was the 4th of July today and being that we are American we planned a big group dinner with the Viginia Tech students at the Hardrock Cafe in Paris. We managed to call ahead and make seat reservations for 20 people so we didnt even have to wait in line although we were quite late because of the train. It was interesteing travelling with 20 people but we managed to take care of it and get there. It was nice to eat some familiar foods but they tasted a little different than they would in America, but it was delicious.