Last day in Paris Posted on January 19th, 2015 by

Today was our last full day in Paris. It was another full day on the move. We left the hotel at 9:00AM, to a vineyard. One the way to the vineyard we had our first class on the Englsih culutre. Nusla and Annika had us singing and chanting some popluar fight songs for the soccer teams in England. Things got a little too image image image image image imagecompetative for 9 in the morning. If you ask me the back of the bus won hands down.  At La vinge de Sureshes, Guillaume, the owner and wine maker gave us a breif hisroty behind the grapes and his vineyard. It was located on the highest “mountain,” as he called it in Paris. From the top of the hill the Eiffel Tower peered through the fog. It was a beautiful view! The first bottle of wine from this vineyard dates back to 400 BC.  Whoa! However, there was not a lot of technology back at this time to store the wine so they only made enough wine for the people that were there. They would make the wine and the people of Paris would consume it straight away. Around the 19th century thimage image imagee grapes were plaged with a parisite from America that was effecting all the vineayards in France. Fortuneltly, American was able to help them fix this problem that they caused. America gave France vine roots that were resistant to this perisit. The French then took their vines and grafted them together; the French vines then grew from the beginnings of the American roots. It was hard to translate what he was saying to English for our guides so this is what we took from it. Almost all over France the vine’s roots are from America.  They produce 5,000 bottles of white wine, Charddonay, every year. This is the only wine they produce here. We had the priviladge to taste this and some even bought some bottles to take home. Only if they were 21 of course can they take it back to America. Luckly we are 21! :)

After the wine tour we returned to the hotel at about noon and then had the rest of the day to ourselves. We chose to go shopping down at the famous department store known as the Galleries of Lafayette along with many of the other girls. The stores in the department store proved to be very expensive so a few came up empty handed even though I felt the purpose was to just go and look at the coture fashion that is Paris. Today was the girls day to shop FINALLY! The trendy item to buy for the girls on the trip has been the Long Champ bags because the store origionates in Paris so the bags are much cheaper here than at home. No regrets on the purchases! Some of the “tennis boys,” as they have been called on this trip, decided to venture to the other side of the city to see a soccer and tennis stadium. They took a half hour metro ride to the stadiums but were able to purchase some official team shirts and get back in time for dinner at 8pm at the hotel. Matt Baker also would like to highlight his purchase of an 18 euro scarf at the soccer stadium for the St. Germane team. Sean and a few of his other friends went and got a few more bottles of wine at a wine shop in the city. Lisa, Sean, Jake, Cassie, and Dan went shopping together in the “posh” part of Paris (as our tourguide mentioned) and bought some shirts and had lunch along the way. Ben Halverson and Matt Bettes decided that they didn’t want to venture out on their own today and ended up hanging out at the hotel for the day watching anything they could find in English on the TV and enjoying some of their wine they bought at the winery earlier that day. All in all, everyone seemed to have a great last day in Paris and tomorrow we are up early and headed to London! We can’t wait!

Over and out,

Heidi Korin and Beth Olson

 


One Comment

  1. Missy Korin says:

    Great description of everyone’s day!