15. Third LTTA with students in France November 2019

  • KA2 in Beaujolais

    Hard work & lots of fun

     

    By Claire Morand

    On this 6th mobility of our KA2 Erasmus project, our European teams settled on 2 places. As they arrived from Spain, Slovenia, Germany and Italy, they were accommodated in CISL, a youth hostel in Lyon on  17th November 2019.

    On Monday, we met the teams at the hostel. We enjoyed breaking the ice with the game ‘Find someone who..’, followed by  the ‘spaghetti challenge’ that was rewarding the highest tower with a marshmallow on top (and plenty to eat after!) and the ‘2 circle speed meeting’ activity in order to know more about each other.

    After lunch, in a cool and sunny weather, we went  to Fourvière square by, the highest spot of Lyon, where there is a very famous church and an overview of the city. The group got down to place St Jean and its typical streets full of ‘bouchons’ the typical restaurants of Lyon, serving unusual dishes such as ‘quenelles’ (a perfectly smooth, rugby-ball soft food) or ‘cervelle de canut’ –do not imagine cannibalism, it is just soft cheese with fine herbs!

    Then, as the French team went back to Bel Air, the partners had free time and dinner in Lyon.

    On Tuesday, we met at a famous deluxe place: the idea was to do a survey among the retailers in Les Halles Paul Bocuse. Surrounded by good food and delicacies, we told our partners about the tradition of the finest cuisine of the Lyon’s mothers and their spiritual son who is famous all over the world for gastronomy and emblematic of our region: Paul Bocuse.

    After a short bus drive, we arrived at the Inter-hotel in Belleville. We had lunch at Poivre Rouge restaurant, close to the hotel.

    At 3 PM… Hello, here we are! With a rock version of the Ode of joy from Beethoven, we welcomed the partners in Bel Air with hats decorated with the item out of themes from our training: food products! Our guests had a tour of the school and the wine estate. They were amazed with the 9 hectares of Bel Air vineyard! A little snack with croissants, pains au chocolat (French chocolate puff pastry) and grape juice from the wine estate was offered at the end to fhe afternoon.

    In the evening, the teachers were quite puzzled by the quiet and silent town of Belleville, where they could not even find a single place to have a drink…

    On Wednesday, after a presentation of each school, we started discovering a lay-out of the game to design. First, 2 board games, Snakes and Ladders and the Goose Game were compared. Not every participant knew both board games! However, analyzing similarities and differences led the students to choose a pattern to play on Soft Skills in Retail. The high school was really quiet, as the French students don’t usually attend school in the afternoon…

    3rd and 4th sessions on the board game on  this Thursday! In a foggy atmosphere that turned out to be sunny at noon, the students worked hard to find the right colors, a logo, a slogan and a name for their games. Then they were asked to design the display of the gaming board, with specific squares and examples of question cards.

    Unfortunately, a student of the Slovenian team had suffered from a toothache for several days and after several searches, we could bring her to a dentist and we were surprised as the dentist spoke English! It makes it easier to explain the problem and the solution!

    We had to specify  that we were on a very special day as this week was the new wine celebration, especially in the Beaujolais region, where the Sarmentelles take place in every village, as the Beaujolais nouveau can be drunk on the 3rd Thursday of November–like it is in many places in the world!

    In the rainy evening, we attended a musical parade throughout the Belleville streets, a clown show and a dinner called ‘Mâchon dansant’, where our wine making students created a good mood in a quite old-fashion tradition.

    Wasn’t it quite difficult to get up this Friday after such a night? What is more the wallet of our headteacher played a trick on us … But after having packed their luggage, the team arrived and prepared the presentation of the board game they worked on. Witty, smart and full of ideas!

    Then as the students had lunch, the teachers’ team tasted the wines of the high school domain, but we almost did not have lunch, as we were a bit late to go to the cafeteria!

    Last but not least, the whole team visited the training chateau shop ‘Saveurs de Bel Air’, where our French students sold fine food and wine, such as chocolate spread, organic bread, oils flavored with basil, sesame or chili pepper, vinegars, compotes, jams and other delicacies… But the best sellers of this afternoon were the wines of our cellar!

    After taking some photos, we dealt the attendance certificates to each team and we bid farewell to each other, with Sassari as our next mobility in mind! The four teams went back to Lyon for one last night and the day after, everyone went home, sweet home…

    We have enjoyed this mobility time so much that it made us want to start again. After Barcelona, Liubiana, Hamburg and Belleville, we will meet in Sardinia next!

    THANK YOU EUROPE!