As I've mentioned, the "review" class I'm taking is pretty much Greek to me. I don't understand a thing that is going on. But, throughout the class I can hear groups of 2 and 3 students conferring amongst themselves, trying to sort out the details. I can hear Italian behind me, French next to me, German in front of me, Spanish across the aisle and occasionally Turkish in the far back.
Outside of class, I've fallen into a routine of hanging around with two of the French students. Elsa, who speaks an almost perfect American English and Baptiste whose heavily accented English is simply enchanting. I've come to observe that they, being French, have a routine as well. At least once a day (sometimes twice), they devolve into a heated discussion of......wine, cheese or both. It can go on for 30 minutes. Or more. During the course of all this, I've learned nothing about wine or cheese, except that, apparently, the only good products (of either type) come from France. In fact, Baptiste takes his cheese so seriously, that he had a last meal of cheese before departing Paris. He described it as a cheese orgy. I told him that I thought perhaps a better description would be "cheese feast." He asked, "what does this word 'orgy' mean?" I obliged by explaining. He replied, "I am French, that is OK, too."
In the course of observing this debate, I learned something else rather interesting. It appears that in France, not only is the distinction between the love of cheese and, um, other earthly pleasures blurred, but also the distinction between studing Geography and Wine. As Baptiste recently explained, they are pretty much the same. "Why would you study Geography except to understand where the wine comes from, and how could you study wine without understanding Geography? You cannot study one without the other."
Excellent questions, don't you think?
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