Jill ne sais quoi

The wine tasting and concert on Sunday were great. The evening started with a piece for harpsichord and violin, which I enjoyed. That was followed by a few intense piano pieces, my favorite being Prelude to an English suite. Then there was a pretty excellent cello piece and we went into the foyer for a brief intermission to taste some white Corsican wines. We bought glasses (6€) with Bach's face engraved on them, which allowed us to taste all the wine we wished at the concert and if we bring them with us to other events at the festival (which is going on until Sunday), we won't have to pay again. Very exciting.

After the intermission we returned to our seats and watched this crazy woman play the piano. I have never seen someone play so...enthusiastically. In fact, the only person I've seen come close is Victor Borge. She kept throwing her head back, pretending to sing, conducting herself when she had a hand free, and at one point she actually leapt off her seat! I kid you not! Now I am all for getting into your music, but this woman just looked ridiculous.

After her, there were a few other ensembles, and then we went back into the foyer where we tasted 2 reds, a rose and a white dessert wine. They were all really good, but I couldnt' really detect any distinct scents, so I guess it was a failure. They had all these charts up showing the different parts of the tongue and these huge lists of possible "aromas" in wine, some of the categories being: "vegetal", "animal" and "milk products". Maybe it's a good thing I couldn't smell that much.

To top off our classy night, we grabbed Pizza Hut (hey--it was 21h30 on a Sunday. NOTHING was open!) and came back here to eat.

Yesterday I woke up ill. Again. Very exciting. Nothing really happened, I went to class, etc. etc.

Today I skipped my Travaux Practiques and studied for my midterms. One of which I had today. It was Literature, and it was very very easy. Our professor thinks we're kind of dumb simply because we don't speak French. I will write more about that at a later date.

Sam and I had dinner with Claude tonight (Christine is on vacation for a couple days with her mother) . We ate a Quiche Lorraine which was quite delicious. And Claude gave me a burned copy of the soundtrack to Les Demoiselles de Rochefort which he just bought! So excited. We have the best host parents ever. Christine was NOT happy when he bought the CD though. "I've been asking for that for YEARS and NOW you buy it?!" she said.