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Saturday,
June 16, 2001
 The
week went by quickly. Yvette Millot kept on inviting students
over for her lavish lunches, and we all took advantage of the
good weather to have a last look at the mountains and countryside.
Two more students ( Christina
and Christopher
) went hang-gliding, and we received the visit of Christina's
sister Jackie, who will be with us until the end of the Program
next week.
We had classes on Thursday
and Friday, and Friday afternoon went on our last group field
trip. We started
after lunch, heading past Albertville up to the town of Beaufort,
where we stopped at the local cheese coöperative.
 The
coöp gathers the milk of some 160 dairy farmers and produces
about 920 metric tons of Beaufort cheese per year (out of a total
regional production of 4,200 tons of this type of cheese. As a
point of comparison, it is interesting to note that this total
quantity of Beaufort cheese amounts to less than one-fiftieth
of the production of the better-known but less flavorful Emmental
or "Swiss" cheese.)
We watched workers
unmolding that morning's production in a large room which meets
the European Community's latest sanitary requirements; all of
the equipment is  made
of stainless steel, and even the cheese cellars smelled of disinfectant.
If the truth be told, the stringent requirements on cheese production
methods, imposed by a germ-phobic Danish government, has made
virtually no difference in the health of Europeans, but has definitely
had an impact on the quality of cheese, which is now less flavorful
and distinctive than in the past. The enormous cheeses visible
in the photo at right, when fully ripened in about seven months'
time, will each weigh over one hundred pounds.
 
We saw a couple of
the ripening cellars and sampled some of the very tasty cheese
before getting back into the bus for the ride up a long and winding
road up to the Cormet de Roselend mountain pass. We stopped by
the artificial lake which feeds an enormous hydroelectric complex
near Albertville before visiting the Alpine meadows at the mountain
pass. The photo below at right shows Jennifer and Jeannette gathering
spring flowers for nosegays. They picked crocuses, of which there
were literally tens of thousands dotting the meadow.
 
Among the flowers one
can find typical Alpine flowers, such as the crocus (left), the
purple gentian (center), and the aster (right). We also saw anemones
and marsh marigolds, all typical of an Alpine meadow above timberline
early in the season.
  
After the inevitable
snowball fight, some of the students chose to walk up a long grassy
knoll to get a better view; Emil climbed to a rocky outcrop, and
we watched the clouds rolling in as the showers announced for
the afternoon finally began to materialize.
On the way down from the mountain
pass, we ran into a traffic jam of sorts as cows filled the roadway;
milking machines are brought to the middle altitudes for the milkings
as the cows slowly work their way upwards. The cows, all of Tarine
(like Brown Swiss) and Abondance breeds, gather around the milking
machines which are parked along the roadside. Within a couple
of weeks, the cows will be grazing on the highest meadows which,
this early in the season, do not yet have enough grass to sustain
a herd. The tender spring vegetation yields the best and most flavorful milk,
so that the cheese that comes on the market in December and January will be the best of the year.
 
At the bottom of the mountain, we stopped
in the city of Bourg St Maurice for a rest stop and a beverage;
from Bourg St Maurice we went to the town of Aime, Axima
in Roman times; Unfortunately the basilica was closed and we were
unable to see the lapidary museum within. But the students examined
the exterior of the structure and clowned around in a bobsled.
The drive back to Faverges was quick and we arrived in time for
supper, just as the heavens opened up and the rain came pouring down.
 
This is the group's last weekend in
the Alps; students are going into Annecy and visiting each other's
host families , taking part in activities that the thunderstorms
will not impede, such as reading the last two chapters in the
class text...
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we
will be holding our last classes; Monday evening, we will have
a farewell party in the mountain village of Montmin; Tuesday,
our last pasta lunch at Yvette's. Wednesday afternoon and evening
are reserved for last-minute purchases and packing; Thursday,
half of the students will be taking the long flight home, while
the six others disperse all over Europe.
This website is getting well over six
hundred hits a week, which suggests that a lot of people are reading
these pages! Many thanks to those who have sent their comments.
Final
report to be posted Thursday, June 21, 2001
Your comments are welcome!
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