St. Emilion! bring your cats...

Bonjour St. Emilion!

Today our class explored St. Emilion! St. Emilion is a town near Bordeaux that is known for making wine. It is a medieval town and a very impressive photo spot. We got to St. Emilion by tram. bus, and train. We took a tram to a tram, then a tram to a bus, and finally a bus to a train that dropped us off at our destination.

When arriving at the bottom of the hill to St. Emilion, we were transported into a world that we hadn't seen in France before.

hikin' up the hill

There were vineyards and beautiful old buildings surrounding us. Laura felt  like she was in Under the Tuscan Sun (French addition, obviously). We then headed up the hill, and I got my workout for the day..so I thought. We wanted to go to stores specializing in wine asap. On our way there the town looked empty, like we were the only ones there, so I was alittle skeptical. We found bottles that went for roughly 400 euros, and also found a 1600 euro bottle of cognac that was about 150 years old.We then walked around as I was having a panic attack over all the cats that I had to dodge. Yes, cats are on my top 5 fears list. We went to lunch and I had one of the best meals that I have had in France thus far. We ordered a white regional wine to feel cool. It was delicious! We tried to use our new wine knowledge lingo to describe it. We also decided to try snails! I was kind of scared but Alysa was basically throwing up before she even tried them. We all ended up loving the snails, but especially the sauce!

nom

I had scallops and mashed potatoes for my meal. At the end of the meal I decided to taste some of Laura's dish...BIG MISTAKE. I then washed my meal down with a dose of benadryl, as I had been eating a pine nut. Luckily I didn't die. Once the commotion was over, we realized that we would have to find Chateau Soutard (where the wine tasting class was) on our own. We ended up going the wrong way about 4 times, asked for directions and got 20 different answers, and sprinted through a few vineyards before making it to the class promptly 40 minutes late. Dr. Logan said that she was impressed that we found it on our own. I bought the wine that everyone liked the most to bring home. Then we went to the shops around town. It was getting very cold out and we had the opportunity to get an earlier train back to Bordeaux. Laura and I sprinted down the hill, gracefully, and made the train in the knick of time.

 On the train home, a massive dog was just chillin in the aisle. I have noticed that animals are like people here. The shops at St. Emilion even said ''cat friendly'' on their doors. The day was great and the town was beautiful. The allergy attack was a nice memory as well. I would have prefered a warmer day and no pine nuts in my system, but I got a lot of nice photos and a sense of true wine country.