It is now the end of the first week in Dijon without class. The week has included a trip to the local museum, a cassis factory, and the Notre Dame de Dijon. Creme de Cassis is a berry syrup liquor, that can be added to white wine or champagne, and is a specialty of Dijon. While at the Cassis factory we got to sample different flavors and varieties, the flavors ranged from coffee to apricot and were quite delicious.
Photo by Hannah Mink
Here is another picture of the basement of the factory where different varieties of cassis age.
Photo by Hannah Mink
Its pretty cold here, earlier this week -10C was the the plat du jour, but it has since warmed up to a cozy -3C.
A word of advice from one traveler to another: When in France, beware of dog poop; it is everywhere.
From my minimal encounters with real French people, it seems to me that french pop music has failed France’s young generation. I was hanging out with my host brothers friends and a music video came on the television, I asked if the singer was French or not, and the response I got was something along the lines of, “It is east to tell, if the singer is an idiot, then he is probably French.”
My host brother says he learned a lot of his English from watching American TV shows like “How I met your mother”, and “Community”. I think the level at which American TV series have helped spread English around the world is underrated. The main reason why these shows are available to people around the world is because of the internet and sites like Megaupload which recently got shut down by the US government. Shutting down Megaupload in no way stopped these shows being available online (which SOPA/PIPA tried to accomplish), but it seems to have hindered the ease of access. In attempting to combat online piracy, which in my opinion is equally as silly as fighting a war on terror, the US might be damaging its supply of media (and English) to the rest of the world.
Nothing is ever “Fragrance-Free”.