My New Home (well, at least for the next four months)
I'm here in Paris, France (well approximately 20 km South of Paris) to finish my MBA. I'm supposed to be here for four months but already, I get the sense that I want to be here for a much longer period of time.
I'm staying at the HEC student residence and it is quite comfortable with a cleaning lady who visits twice a week. I have my own bathroom and a spacious bedroom with an extremely large window overlooking a wooded area as well as a small playground. I wake up to the sound of young children laughing and singing songs in French. I then wander over to the restaurant where I join a number of hungry university students scrambling for a bowl for their extra large latte, espresso or hot chocolate. Next we pick up small baguettes and jam. Then we all sit down and slowly cut up the bread and dip it into the bowl...
After breakfast, it's a 3 minute walk to the MBA building. The classes are in English and they have less than 30 students so there's a great opportunity to get to know the professor, usually a famous French business man. For instance, I've heard that marketing is taught by the CEO of Louis Vuitton! Unlike my previous b-school experience, there are no cases to prepare and the students are fairly relaxed. HEC has an equal number of European, North American and Asian students. I've been extremely fortunate in making friends with a number of "Frenchies" and I look forward to getting to know them better over the term. Tonight, they invited me to watch Desparate Housewives with them in French...
Lunch and dinner at the residence seems to evoke an incredible sense of energy and excitement: this may be due to the young age of the diners. There are hundreds of business undergrads at HEC. There's a gigantic salad bar with everything from couscous to beet salad to shredded carrots. There's also a soup bar! And a dessert bar which includes a number of creamy desserts (such as crème brulée, cafe creme), little tarts (apple and lemon are very popular) as well as fresh fruit. And a number of other unidentified French items which I have not yet had the courage to try. Oh, and of course, there is a new cheese plate every day. Did you know that there are over 1000 different types of cheeses?
I'm staying at the HEC student residence and it is quite comfortable with a cleaning lady who visits twice a week. I have my own bathroom and a spacious bedroom with an extremely large window overlooking a wooded area as well as a small playground. I wake up to the sound of young children laughing and singing songs in French. I then wander over to the restaurant where I join a number of hungry university students scrambling for a bowl for their extra large latte, espresso or hot chocolate. Next we pick up small baguettes and jam. Then we all sit down and slowly cut up the bread and dip it into the bowl...
After breakfast, it's a 3 minute walk to the MBA building. The classes are in English and they have less than 30 students so there's a great opportunity to get to know the professor, usually a famous French business man. For instance, I've heard that marketing is taught by the CEO of Louis Vuitton! Unlike my previous b-school experience, there are no cases to prepare and the students are fairly relaxed. HEC has an equal number of European, North American and Asian students. I've been extremely fortunate in making friends with a number of "Frenchies" and I look forward to getting to know them better over the term. Tonight, they invited me to watch Desparate Housewives with them in French...
Lunch and dinner at the residence seems to evoke an incredible sense of energy and excitement: this may be due to the young age of the diners. There are hundreds of business undergrads at HEC. There's a gigantic salad bar with everything from couscous to beet salad to shredded carrots. There's also a soup bar! And a dessert bar which includes a number of creamy desserts (such as crème brulée, cafe creme), little tarts (apple and lemon are very popular) as well as fresh fruit. And a number of other unidentified French items which I have not yet had the courage to try. Oh, and of course, there is a new cheese plate every day. Did you know that there are over 1000 different types of cheeses?
posted by petitecanadienne | 8:53 PM
1 Comments:
sounds absolutely fabulous lisa!
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