November 19, 2007

Our first day in Reims-Champagne!!! How exciting! I woke up, showered and went to a WONDERFUL breakfast! This place just keeps surprising me! I had to force myself not to eat everything because I knew I was going to be here for 6 days! haha. Then the bus took us to the University at 8:45. We got to school at 9ish and the President of the school spoke to us as a welcome.

Then our first speaker Jacques Dumonceau (who happens to be the Director of Studies for our program as well as a teacher of the University of Reims)

and Joaquin Orozco, spoke on "The future of food packaging"

This lecture was a bit boring. However, have any of you in the states seen the new packaging where there is a label that the colored dot changes the riper the fruit is? Sounds interesting! Then we had lunch. The lunch here is in catered boxes...they were beautifully made, but bland! Oh well. I barely ate, but I wasn't too hungry after a HUGE breakfast!!! Then at Lucien Karpik lectured based on his book L'exconomie des singularites "The consumers choice with regard to fine wines and fine resturants"

This lecture was very interesting because we learned a lot about the Michelin guide. That's compared to the Zagat guide at home...however it's different because they also discuss the scenery and hotels and stuff. It's a GREAT book! I use it when chosing my restaurants! Then he ended REALLY early (which is good...we were all really tired today.) So our next speaker started early. Caroline Dusautoir spoke on "Sensorial Communication".

I was a bit confused at first because she was talking about marketing and the next minute about well being but she tied it in really well. I guess the new wave of marketing is through smell! How cool! She really made me want to progress in my new business and make me stand out as far as marketing! She was a VERY active speaker which was cool to watch as well. She also played bird noises the entire class! hahah. THAT however was a bit annoying. We ended at 6 and then took the bus over to the Reims town hall where the Mayor of Reims welcomed us with Champagne (ha) and a PRESENT! We all got a nice black bag with goodies inside including a pen, a keychain, a map of the city, bottle tops, and my favorite, a recipe book! We then came home and dinner was at 8:15! once again...AMAZING! however, tonite I decided to embarass myself infront of the chef and speak bad french! i asked him for the recipe and if he accepted stages. However for some reason I couldn't understand him...so I looked SOOO stupid! OY! Anyway, at 10 pm I came upstairs and got ready for bed! I can tell this is going to be a tough week!!!