Whats Cookin' With Gerald

This week we got to experience french culture in a new way. Our professor Jerry planned for us to come over to his house and prepare a traditional french meal. We prepared a four course meal for everyone complete with: a tart-like appetizer containing tomatoes w/ sauce and herbs, salad topped with goat cheese, rabbit marinated in a dijon mustard, mousee aux chocolate for dessert. There were 7 of us working in the kitchen at the same time. We were all given instructions on the board before starting. Along with the instructions we were given a french lesson based around food. It was a very interesting way to learn more about the language and culture too. After getting our assignments we broke into groups to make a different part of the meal. Four of us made the dessert, 2 made the appetizers, and 1 was a recorder to write down all the instructions and other random facts. Along with getting a lesson in cooking we also learned how to distinguish good wine. The french typically serve wine with at least two courses throughout their meal. We had a very nice rose wine with our appetizers and then a red wine with our meal. Can't ask for much more than a traditional french meal and wine tasting for class. Our meal was a complete success and everything tasted amazing.

This past weekend we had 3 days off and decided to travel. We put a lot of planning into our trip and decided to visit london. Transportation alone was expensive and everything there was more than double the american dollar because of the currency. We tried to beat the system by packing our own food in our carry on bags. We each took with us two bagettes and about ten oranges. We were going to try to make that our meals and be as frugal as possible. However we ended up giving in on multiple occassions. London was expensive but it was a very fun trip. When we landed on friday mornign the sun was shining and it wasnt too cold. We got off the plane and went through customs and we kept using french words, completely forgeting we could speak english. After finding our way through the airport we got on the train and headed for our hostel. We had so many problems finding our hostel after getting out of the train station and everyone we asked kept telling us different directions. We realized we followed the wrong road and at some point it had changed to a different one. Our hostel was pretty nice it was an old courthouse that was renovated and made into a hostel. We met some interesting people while we were waiting for our room to be ready. We met some high school kids from spain who were learning english and spoke it very well. We waited with them for about an hour until our room was ready. After we got settled in we decided it was time to explore so we headed towards the area of the london bridge. We got there on the underground with no problems. We didnt have to walk very far to find the bridge and after taking pictures from a distance. After getting shots from far away we walked along the river and got our close up shots and walked across the bridge. Later that night we met up with Karen's brother who had been living in london for the past month. We also met up with him the next day and he was able to show us all the major sites. We covered so much ground on saturday and saw everything i wanted to see. The last day we went and saw the palace and the changing of the guards. Finally, we finished off our trip looking in all the tourist shops for souvenirs for everyone. I loved my trip to london, tried not to break the bank there but it was all well worth it.