Ooo La La Lyon: Chocolate and Roller Coasters

10/24-10/30

Artistic photo in front of Valrhona Chocolate Company

Three major things happened this week. First was going to Valrhona, second I had a book presentation for school, and third I went to Walibi amusement park.

Beautiful house in Tain l'Hermitage

The trip to Valrhona was for a school project. For this project there are four people in the group including me, and we are tasked with researching and developing a new cocoa bean drying process. A representative from Valrhona invited us to come and see the production facility and the chocolate museum that they have. It was so much fun! The facility was in a small town called Tain l'Hermaitage, an hour south of Lyon. Valrhona welcomed us and I had a great time learning up close about how chocolate is processed. While on the tour at each part of the process we got to taste what the product was like at that stage. Then at the end we got to tastes six different finished products. Then to top that Valrhona gave each member of the team gift boxes with chocolate in them. The representative took us out to lunch, to a small restaurant that serves only local food. I had this delicious fresh green salad, then white fish with a red wine sauce, plus steamed fall vegetables. For dessert is was a fruit salad with this chocolate crisp and walnuts. After lunch the group went to the Valrhona Chocolate Museum. We got to do a chocolate tasting with four different types of their chocolate (2 milk chocolate, 2 dark). Then there was a history of cocoa, history of the company, several videos about how chocolate is harvested then processed. They had another section that was about their pastry schools. They had different treats for us to taste. Then there was a computer game that we could "make" our own chocolate dessert like we were at one of their pastry schools. After the museum Xiyu (one of the girls in the group) and I went an explored the town a bit. We found a couple of places to take some great photos.

So the next thing was a book report. I have not needed to do a book report for 4 years now, and it was a bit weird. However, I did it and the presentation went really will and the teacher was impressed with how I presented the different topics, and the overall layout of the PowerPoint. The book I had to present about was Reaching the Top: Factors that Impact the Careers and Retention of Senior Women Leaders by Wanda T. Wallace. Overall the book was decent, but I did not agree with how the data was presented and the conclusion she determined.

The Eqwalizer!!

Finally yesterday I went to Walibi amusement park with Clara, her brother, and Maëlle. Clara and Maëlle both studies at OSU last year as exchange students from ISARA. So it was nice to get the Oregon group back together. It was soooooo cold yesterday!! That aside the day was a ton of fun! We started with going on a lazy river raft ride. After that we went on a baby roller coaster that was like a smaller version of thunder mountain. Then on to a bigger roller coaster called Timber. This one was a wooden roller coaster with one big drop at the beginning, then a lot of fast turns. We took a break for lunch then went on a cute boat ride called Tam Tam. The ride took us through different movie sets in the jungle and we had drums to play along with the beat of the music. After this nice easy ride I went on a adrenaline roller coaster called the Eqwilizer. This ride was so scary good! The ride starts out by taking you up backwards, the drop is almost vertical. Then it releases you and you go into a partial loop-de-loop, then a twist then starts going down a drop still upside down, then into a full loop-de-loop. Now the ride is shaped like a "U". So now we are facing up and are taken up the other side of the "U" then repeat the whole ride backwards! At the end of the day I went on this ride 4 times!! As a group we went on the ride that is a giant pirate ship that rocks back and forth like a swing. We went on it two times and on the second time each side of the pirate ship had a screaming contest with the other. Since Halloween is on Monday the park had a lot of Halloween attractions to go and see. There were park employees dressed up as scary people walking around the park the whole day scaring people. The other thing was they had a haunted house. This haunted house was really good. They had some really great effects, and a great plan on how to scare people. The first thing was they did a lot of distracting so you would be being scared by one thing, and then a person would jump out from behind you and scare you again! It was FANTASTIC, I think their best piece of work was the last room where the exit was. We walked into this room, where there was a jail with somethings inside and no one was in there. Then out of no where a man with a bloody knife runs from behind the bars making a clinking sound with his knife. This scared the group into the corner and then another man came from behind us to scare us out the door! There was also a cute 3D movie that was about ghost scaring people. It was a cute film, and gave us a chance to be inside to get a little bit warm. We went on a kid roller coaster that was actually fun. It was not to fast, but still a good ride. There was also a water slide that you slide down in a blow up raft. There were four sides so we all raced each other. At the end of the day there was a firework show, that was set to music. The show lasted 15 minutes, and was a great. All in all they day was a great break and i enjoyed hanging out with my friends