What a day! It has snowed a little the past few days, as I mentioned in my last update, but today was colder than any other day I have experienced here thus far. Bone-chilling cold. This afternoon I had Oenology: The History, Business, and Culture of the Wine Industry of France. We did our first wine tasting which was very interesting. We started off with a white wine from the Loire Valley. We "oxygenated" the wine by swirling it in our professional wine-tasting glasses and then smelled the wine to see what aromas we could smell. We had a piece of cheese bread, a biscuit, and a piece of chocolate that we tasted with the wine. The foods either acted well with the wine or made it entirely too bitter or sour. It was interesting that the white wine tasted extremely bitter with the cheese bread and tasted much better when paired with chocolate. We also tried a red wine, from the Cote de Rhone region of France. This wine tasted horrible with the biscuit and the bread. Some liked it with chocolate however I prefer it by itself without any accompaniments. I also learned how Champagne is made which is useful because I will be taking a trip to the Champagne region in a few weeks. Next week we are going to the largest wine cellar in Europe!

Unfortunately, I have a bit of a sore throat. The nyquil I have been taking at night, usually my savior for all types of sickness, does not seem to be working so I reluctantly went over to the pharmacy and spoke with the pharmacist who was very helpful and told me exactly what I needed to take and how to take it. I explained that the medicines in the US look a lot different and that I was clueless as to which medicines I needed here in France--yes, I said this almost all in French. I just began taking the meds a few hours ago and already I am feeling much better!

Tomorrow I have to wake up very early because my International Marketing class is meeting at La Defense, the business district of Paris, to have class. Yay for field trips :)

A demain!

-MEP