School Trip!!

April 14, 2024

Every few years, my university sends our program on a European agriculture/vineyard tour of Europe, and this year 24 classmates and I were able to visit 5 countries in 7 days. We learned a lot of stuff, drank a lot of wine, ate a lot of bread, and spent a lot of time on a bus. What a week!!

Sunday

We piled into a 24 people into a 26 person bus and left Piacenza at 6:45 am. It was one of my first times being up before sunrise since moving here! We headed to Switzerland, and had a packed lunch at a lovely park in Sion, Switzerland. It was a good way to break up the 7 hours of driving that day. We enjoyed the fresh mountain air and walked a few miles to Chateau Constellation, where a student from the year ahead of me works. We had a wonderful wine tasting then hopped back on the bus and headed to Lyon, France for the evening.

Monday:

When I studied abroad in summer 2019, I got to spend a month in Lyon, and it was so fun being back, even if I didn’t have time to explore at all. We spent the morning at an agriculture lecture before heading to Pommard in Burgundy. We had a tasting, visited the horses (which plow the vineyard), then we headed to the vineyards of Romanee Conti while on our way to Dijon for the night. In Dijon, we headed into the center of town and had an amazing French dinner. I had Tartine, Grilled salmon with vegetables and potatoes, and a chocolate lava cake (which nearly made me cry).

Tuesday:

Alsace was one of my dream wine regions to visit, and on Tuesday, I got to go! Alsace is a region in France, but it has been part of Germany during both world wars. It is hilly, and cool climate, and lovely. We spent the afternoon there before heading to Soultzmatt Germany for the evening.

Wednesday:

Germany is so cute. The countryside in the wine regions, especially this time of year, is so lush and green. We spent the morning walking through town and the vineyards of Dr. Burklin-Wolf Weingut, then had a tasting, From there we went to Westhofen where we had “natural wine” and a German pretzel. That evening, we headed to Brussels, Belgium, and had a night out on the town.

I didn’t really know what to expect from Brussels, but it was even cooler than I imagined. We walked by St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, Les Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, and Grand-Place before heading to Delirium, a bar that holds the Guiness World Record for having over 2000+ types of beer. I had a Belgian waffle and some frites for dinner, and stayed out with classmates and our professor till 3 am. It was such a fun night!

Thursday:

One thing I never would’ve expected to do: Go to the European Commission. We spent Thursday morning in a lecture talking about sustainable agriculture and climate change. It was an interesting conversation, but we were all exhausted. Our professor fell asleep during the lecture…

We spent the rest of the day on the bus heading back to Germany. We stayed in a cute family run hotel, where an eight-year-old showed us to our rooms. We had a home cooked meal of Riesling soup and wiener schnitzel, and I headed to bed early.

Friday:

We spent the day in Geisenheim. Our first stop was Leitz, which specializes in dry Rieslings, but also non-alcoholic wine. I was familiar with Leitz because we served their non-alcoholic wine as at Flights wine bar in Bend, so it was really fun seeing their facility and learning a bit about de-alcoholization! The Italians in my program hated the concept of non-alcoholic wine and weren’t afraid to share their opinion with our poor host. But it was a cool experience! That afternoon we headed to Geisenheim University where we spent hours in the vineyard learning about their research and technology.

This weekend:

Saturday we trekked back to Piacenza. We stopped in Switzerland at the prettiest gas station I’ve ever seen, had an aperitivo when we made it back to Italy, and I settled right back into home.

I thought I’d be too exhausted to move for the rest of the weekend, and I was looking forward to getting cozy on the couch and watching The Masters, but it was 82 degrees (27 degrees Celsius, to all my European readers) and apparently you can’t stream The Masters in Italy, so I’ve spent the past 24 hours mainly outside. Saturday night I went on a nice, summery night walk with my friend Pauline then had a drink with some classmates that didn’t attend the trip. Today, I got up and went out to grab a cappuccino and found that there was a huge Sunday market in town. I love sunny mornings in Italy: it smells like the perfect combination of coffee, cornetti, and cigarettes. I walked and shopped, then Pauline and I laid in the sun before walking and shopping some more.

It was fun getting to explore new places, and I truly loved them all, but it’s good to be back in Italy. It feels like home.

Big news from Saturday: MY BEST FRIEND GOT ENGAGED!!! So she FaceTimed me from Coeur d’Alene to tell me the big news. It the sweetest ending to the sweetest week!!!