June 23
In the blink of an eye our trip is coming to an end! Tomorrow we will be departing Cluny back to Charles de Gaulle airport for our return home. Our first day back from our excursion, we spent Saturday going back at the market and buying the last of our souvenirs, fresh food, and practicing our French. I also got to experience what it is like to go to a French doctor where I was treated for Lymes disease. I guess I had a Bacterial companion that followed me from that states that also wanted to study cheese and wine. For most of Saturday, I was out of commission and spent most of my day in bed recovering but worked alongside my friend to work on our final presentations of a selected wine and cheese! The cheese I was researching was a Neufchâtel cheese and a Sauternes wine. A Neufchâtel cheese cheese is a heart shaped cows milk cheese for the northern part of France and a Sauternes is a dessert wine. This means it is a very sweet wine, often paired with a dessert like a fruit tart and is meant to be sipped not gulped! This wine is actually made through the use of a bacteria called Botrytis Cinerea that shrivels the grapes increasing their sweetness and changing the flavor on a metabolic level. How cool! The shriveling of the grapes though lowers the yield of grape juice, therefore lowering overall yield of wine, making these wines traditionally more expensive.
Today was presentation day for our selected wine and cheese and it was very interesting to see everyone’s selections and discussions. The room was filled with a wonderful energy and it was a nice way to spend our last day in France together. Along with our presentations we all assembled a picnic filled with fresh market bought fruits, salads, and cheeses. Lucky following my day of rest from Lymes, my energy returned and we all ventured to have our last meal at the first restaurant we went to in Cluny at Brassiere Du Nord. It was a relaxing way to end our trip and ending it where we began made the trip feel like it came full circle. The time I spent in France will be nothing I ever forget and will likely be something I talk about for years to come.
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