Adjusting to French: Things are Not Always What They Seem...

June 18, 2012

Somehow, I managed to roll out of bed at 6:45am for a brief morning jog through the town of Cluny. En route I passed the stockiest, most beefy horse I'd ever seen and several white beef cattle, grazing on pasture. Breakfast would be served 7:30am to 9:00am at which time class would start. Many of us were not prepared for the evening after a decent amount of wine with no water, and woke up very thirsty.

We were warmly welcomed at breakfast to baskets of freshly sliced baguettes, cups and saucers set at each placemat, with a small pad of butter each, and bowl of strawberry jam.We were served our choice of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. Also on the table was a bowl of small blocks wrapped in colorful wax paper. I thought they were taffy candies... here I am thinking, bread and candy of all things for breakfast?  That is, until I realized they were cubes of sugar for the coffee and tea.

After clearing our breakfast settings, we made our way over to the classroom located in the room over from where we were eating. We discussed fermentation pathways, a bit of a struggle getting back into the academic mindset after travelling so much. We concluded our review at approximately noon, at which point we headed into town as a group for our first 2 hour lunch.

We sat down at "Brasserie du Nord" and struggled with the menus. The plate of the day was "Brochete, Frites, Salate," which upon first glance, we interpreted as bruschetta. So I imagined tomatoes, reserving this dish as my fallback if there was nothing else I could eat. There was a quiche which I was told was not vegetarian when the time to order came so I asked for the "Plat du jour." When our food came out, we realized brochete was not bruschetta, but rather a skewer of different meats. Frantically, I told a waiter I was vegetarian and couldn't eat it--she graciously removed the plate and brought me a dish of assorted roasted vegetables: shitaake mushrooms, roasted cherry tomatoes on the vine, a few small potatoes, and heap of the most delicious green beans I've ever had. It was beyond perfect. Helen and I shared a creme brulee for dessert. Could this be lunch every day?

After lunch we went back to Cluny Sejour to meet with Dr. Reinart and begin discussing a little bit more about Cluny's history. After such a big meal, exhaustion set in very quickly. We walked around the town, which kept me from dozing, and had a brief look at the old abbey and church, identified the towers which were still standing in the town, and pointed out a few identifiable layers of history scattered about town.


One such tower we entered and ascended was the "Tour de Fromages," or Cheeses Tower. When I first saw the name, I thought, "Cool, they give cheese tours in the town... I wonder if that's something we'll be doing?!" Until I realized "tour" meant "tower." Anyway, this structure had nothing to do with cheese, but was built as a statement of power and wealth. From the top of the tower, we could see for miles and miles around us. Also, there was a screen which showed a real-time camera image of the current town with a virtual image of what would also be present in the town if the abbey and church had never been torn down. We were very confused initially, because the screen showed buildings that weren't there, but it also showed a realtime image of cars and people moving about.

As a group, we walked through Cluny to the local supermarket across town in order to check out the cheese counter as well as stock up on some much needed water bottles. The cheeses offered here were very extensive--probably more varied even than the produce section. I could peruse for hours with a cheese book in hand.






Once again, we went out to dinner as a group. I ordered a pasta with seafood dish, which was a bit of a dilemma figuring out (especially since I didn't want to run into the same problem as I did at lunch). As it turns out, depending on where the accent falls in "pate" it could be pasta or duck liver spread. This menu had a selection of pates, which in this case were pastas. Our large group sitting outside on the patio was a bit of a head-turner, either because we were so big or because we were blatantly American. We'd like to think it was a combination of both.

This afternoon we were provided with a USB with 72 hours of Wifi access on it for our shared use as a group. However, only a select few of us are able to get it to work with our computers, and even when it is hooked up correctly,  the connection is slow and limited. Looks like I will not be skyping with family, sending frequent emails, or updating my blog until I'm back in the states.

- Adrianne Speranza