Days 12-15

Day Twelve: Goodbye Paris, Hello Agde!

Saturday was my last day in Paris.  I woke up at about 6:00 am in order to get ready and pack my last minute things before leaving to catch the metro at 7:00 am.  My bus was scheduled to leave at 8:07 am from Gare du Nord, and because it was so far away and the metro trip involved a transfer we had to leave pretty early, though we did end up with time to kill before I had to get on the train to leave.  We ended up getting café crèmes at a coffee shop (and I of course got a croissant as well).  It was a nice last minute breakfast.  Catching the train wasn’t a problem, and because my ticket was first class the train ride was so comfortable. 

view from right outside our apartment

I got off at the train station in Agde at 12:15 pm and was met out front by Martine and Valerie from Gastronomicom.  The train I was on actually turned out to be the same train a lot of the new students for Gastronomicom took, so a bunch of us piled our luggage and ourselves into the “shuttle” for the school. 

Hanel and Courtney were the first roommates I met because they were both on the train that morning.  Valerie showed us to our apartment and we sort of settled in a bit before having to go down to register with the resort and the school. 

After registering we decided to explore the area and find the local supermarket.  We unfortunately went around 3:00 pm, which is apparently still lunch time to the French, so the supermarket was closed, but Courtney (who took a one month pastry course at the school three years ago) remembered that there was another supermarket down the road so we ended up going to that one to get the essentials.  We bought ingredients to make sandwiches for dinner, and a few extra things like milk and orange juice.

When we got back we decided to pick rooms (two rooms for four people) and to move our clothes into our closets and the like, and while we were doing that Gemma, our fourth roommate, arrived!  We ended up picking the same room.

Some of the other students who had already been at the school for a few months invited us over to their apartment that night to meet everyone, so the roommates and I decided to walk back down to the harbor shopping area to buy drinks to bring with us.

After we got back we started dinner and then hung out talking and getting to know each other a bit.  It’s actually pretty great how well we get along, especially considering how we all are from different parts of the world and we had met so recently.   

At around nine (actually a little bit later, because we were fashionably late), we walked across to our neighbor’s apartment to meet people.

a daytime photo of the park where Hanel and I got lost

We ended up staying out until 5 am that night.  A small group of us went to the one club that was open down at the harbor to go dancing.  It turned out to be really fun and we met quite a few of the other students at the school.

Hanel and I almost got lost though, because the park we cut across to get down to the harbor looks so different at night, and we had to go back to the club ourselves to find her I.D.  We took the wrong path at a fork in the road and got completely turned around, but then we ran into two other people from the school who directed us safely to our apartment for us to go to sleep.

Day Thirteen: I Hate Hyper U 

We all woke up pretty early Sunday morning considering how late we stayed out.  At about 11 am we were all up and about.  Courtney and Hanel ran down to the bakery to pick up some croissants and a few pains au chocolat for breakfast, and it was so nice of them!  That day we decided to go to the big grocery store to buy the things we put of buying the day before, but since the bus doesn’t run on Sundays we thought we’d walk.

View of the sea on the way back from Hyper U
(sorry for the terrible zoom quality)

It ended up being a 2 hour walk there, and we took such a crazy route to get there.  We went through a path through some woods, trudged through brambles, then walked along a stretch of highway, and guess what?  The store was CLOSED!  We rested a bit at a restaurant next to the store before starting back.  The way back was much nicer because we found a proper bike path to take, so it only took 1 ½ hours to get home.  Once again, we ended up going to a little grocery store to get some more essentials, but for dinner that night I ended up eating an entire baguette by myself.  Baguette dipped in salted olive oil is my favorite thing in the world now.  It’s delicious.

We decided to go to bed pretty early that night because of how little we slept the night before, and we were pretty exhausted after our 3 ½ hour trek to and from the grocery store.

Day Fourteen: First Day of School

Monday morning we woke up and had a leisurely breakfast before going to French class at 9:00 am, when we took our French placement test.  Hanel and I ended up getting sorted into the same intermediate level French class for the rest of our classes here.  Pretty cool!  I was pretty impressed with myself that I didn’t forget all of my French. 

Most of the day we just had welcome things to do.  We went for brunch and cocktails down in the kitchen at 11 am, and after we had about a four hour break before we had to meet again for anything school related, so we decided to try going to the big grocery store again.

This time we had much more success.  We took the bus there which took about 15 min., and this time it was actually open.  We all stocked up and between the four of us we brought eight bags of groceries back to our apartment.  Our kitchen has real food in it now though, and it looks like people actually live and eat there.  It’s pretty nice.

At 4:00 pm we went down to the offices to fill out paperwork and the like, and then at 4:30 pm we got our uniforms.  They’re really not bad, though our aprons are huge and we’re required to wear them.  Overall though, the uniform could be worse. 

We finally got the internet code for the wifi that afternoon, so for much of the rest of the day we spent in the classrooms catching up on email and the like.

I made myself a real dinner that night and had vegetables for the first time in a while.  They tasted so good.  It’s funny how after not eating very healthily for a few days you really start to appreciate veggies.

The next day we started our first real classes, so the rest of the night pretty much consisted of the roommates and I talking about how excited we were to start cooking and other school related things.  Also hilariously trying to put names and faces together.  We got most of them down in the end.

Day Fifteen: First Day of Patisserie

I doubt I'm going to be able to keep up this day to day analysis, so most of my posts in the future are probably going to be summaries of what we do in class.  Today I had my first real French class and it really wasn't too bad.  I think I'll learn a lot in it.  It's completely in French, except for when the definitions of words no one knows are given to us in English (though that's pretty rare).
Today was the first patisserie class!  I'm so excited about it.  We started making puff pastry (tomorrow we're going to incorporate the butter and make the folds), and we started a few other things like roquefort bread and a mango and cardamom jelly.  I think we might have a few finished products after tomorrow's class.  Very exciting!  I'll take pictures but I won't be able to upload them until the care package my parents are sending me gets here (hopefully soon!).

Anyway, I'll try to keep up with things but it might get harder now classes have started.  I'll do my best!