After the Adventure.

My haste to get back to Glasgow was rewarded not only with the comfort of being safely back in my humble abode but with a wine-tasting the next day in Beverage Management. A wine saleswoman came to our class with a few different types of wine, and she taught us how to properly analyze and taste each wine. The proper process is to first hold the wine up to light and analyze its brightness, clarity, and freshness. After making sure there isn't anything wrong with its look, you put the glass to your nose, tilt it, and take a full whiff to pick out the scents and fruits given off by the wine. To enhance the flavors you have to add oxygen by swirling the wine. It was surprising how much stronger the smells were after doing that! Finally you get to take a drink of the wine, let it sit in your mouth for a bit, and swallow it. To enhance the flavors of this step we had to suck air in over the wine while it was in our mouth, which was a bit difficult but fun to try. It seriously made the wine taste like a different drink! We got to try a few sauvingnon blancs, a few chadonnays, and a few cabernet merlots. They were from all around the world; a few from South Africa, one from Argentina, another from Australia, and (of course) one from France. They weren't the most expensive wines, but some were pretty nice. Tasting and talking about wine for a few hours was a great classroom experience, and I highly recommend it to other college programs.

The rest of the week was filled with a few classes and reuniting with friends and hearing their crazy spring break stories. People were stuck in France, Spain, and even Greece! Eventually everyone made it back, and we enjoyed going out to eat to celebrate everyone's successful return. I had to write an essay, which proved to be a bit difficult because of the reunions and a bit of writer's block. After starting and re-starting the essay four or five times, it came down to me cranking about 2200 words on a Sunday afternoon. Such is the life of a student... On the bright side, I was looking forward to my parents' impending visit! The ash cloud backed off just enough for flights to resume, so the Hauswalds would be invading Scotland after all!