My First Day

After a week of organizing the apartment, discovering our surroundings, getting a bank account and a phone and internet service, multiple trips to IKEA and time-trials of the walk to school, I was so ready for orientation.

Not too casual, not too formal for the first day

Tuesday, October 9^th, the day after Canadian Thanksgiving, was Orientation Day.  The document that the school sent me only had a few sentences on it, asking that I bring my passport, pay close attention to the huge amounts of information I’ll be given, and promising tea, coffee, and pastries…so I wasn’t really sure what to expect (or what to wear). 

I got cute in a casual dress with tights and flats, trying to avoid being over- or under-dressed for a brunch meeting at an international culinary institute, packed a small notebook and pen and my passport in my huge Marching Band uniform tote, and was ready to go.

Chad walked me to school, camera in hand, in plenty of time.  I was so excited that I couldn’t take it!  Once we got close to the school, we could see lots of freshmen approaching the building from every direction.  Chad snapped a First-Day-of-School photo, wished me luck, and I walked inside.

In the main lobby of the gorgeous little castle there was a line of students checking in.  I joined the line, passport in hand, and had nice little conversations with the students around me.  The girl behind me was also from the United States, so we had plenty to talk about until we got to the front of the line.

I was handed a piece of paper with my name on it in big print, and went up the grand staircase to have my photo taken for my student ID.  From there I went up the third floor to visit the office and pay the rest of my tuition, due before the end of the week.

Orientation time!

I had never met the Student Administrator, Sara Kim, but she and I had exchanged countless e-mails over the summer.  Once the office assistant took my name and Sara heard me, she immediately stopped helping the student in front of me and snapped her head in my direction.  “Erin!  Erin!” she whispered with giddy excitement.  I smiled at her, and she started frantically pointing at a card propped up on her desk by her monitor: it was the card I had written her with my first tuition payment, a cute little piece of stationary with a mouse on the front.  It was funny that she kept it on her desk, but I smiled and was glad that she enjoyed it so much.  I knew we were going to get along just fine.

After I was done in the office, it was down to the “Salle Cointreau,” the largest and fanciest demonstration room in the building, to begin the orientation.

The room was full of students!  Everyone had an assigned seat marked with their name on a large piece of paper hanging from the back.  Mine was in the front row, and when I got there I found a large white Cordon Bleu bag on the chair.  Inside was my “Student Kit,” complete with uniform, binder of recipes, and kitchen scale.  Upon sitting down I noticed something under my seat, as well: it was a large bag made of sturdy, clearly weather-proof fabric with three zippers and a heavy-duty handle.  It was marked “Wusthof” and I knew what that probably meant: a whole bunch of knives.

The orientation began about 10 minutes late, due to the long line of students in the office.  We learned all about the history of the school, what to expect in classes (including “the likely event” that we would all be cut or burned before the end of the program), our uniform code, and we were introduced to the chefs.  I could tell right away that I was going to love working with them: they were all so perfectly French!  They spoke in French amongst themselves and looked so natural in their uniforms.  I was so excited to begin my studies.

Next up was an explanation of our schedules.  We looked at a funny little calendar included in our binders, and slowly deciphered the school’s strange scheduling code.  The pastry students quickly realized, though, that we had our first class later that day, and that we were expected to show up in uniform, ready to go.

After a quick tour of the school and a stop in the locker room to pick lockers and try on our uniforms, I walked home to grab lunch and tell Chad all about orientation.

A few hours later, I returned to school for my first class – a surprise to all of us.  I gave myself plenty of time to change and find the room, and settled in with my notebook and pen.

The class was a “Seminar,” a rare class format at Cordon Bleu, in which we learned all about common pastry ingredients.  It was scientific and specific.  We learned things like the coagulation temperature of egg whites and egg yolks, how many egg yolks or whites or whole eggs it takes to fill a liter, the composition of flour and a few different kinds of chocolate.  We learned about gluten and its role in pastry, and drew diagrams of a grains of wheat and eggs.  We took down numbers and statistics: a Size-Large egg is 60 grams, consisting of 10 grams of shell, 20 grams of white, and 30 grams of yolk.  The white is 90% water and 10% the protein Albumin.  After three hours and over a dozen pages of notes, we were released for the day.

I went home and collapsed on the couch – my first day was long and full of more information than my brain was prepared to process.  Maybe that’s why they only gave us a few sentences on our flier – they knew that we’d need all the brain space we could get for the day.

I told Chad all about it and went to the sleep early – the next day, my first real class started at 8:15 am, and I wanted to be ready!  I knew it was the beginning of something awesome.