October 9, 2012- University Angers and Cointreau tour

Spent the morning working at University of Angers with our groups working on our presentations. Our group decided to present on the topic of Love and Relationships in the various countries represented by our gorup members: US, France, Madagascar and Poland. Kuba, the Polish student, put together Power Point slides as we discussed each country's approach to dating and relationships. We had very interesting conversations. In general, the French seemed to have a very laid-back approach to dating and marriage. They date in groups rather than one-on-one. There is not pressure to get married even after a couple has children. Weddings are not a big deal, since most French do not attend church. Most wedding are paid for by the couple who invites mostly friends and family. Parents do not really interfere. Poland and US seem to have similar approaches to dating and marriage. Man is expected to take woman on a formal "date"- dinner, movie, etc. to show real interest. Weddings are still held at church and parents are involved. Children or not had out of wedlock in most cases. Madagascar was most conservative of people in our group. Young people live with their parents until they are married, so man must ask woman's parents for permission to date. Weddings are family affairs held in churches. Couple must be married to have children. At the end of our day, Pierre, offered to make a Prezi for our presentation the next day. We all agreed and assumed he would do a nice job. Turns out, we should have used the Power Point Kuba put together while we were working in our group, since it had details of all we talked about. The Prezi did not and our group did not do a good job elaborating in front of the class, so a lot of the good and interesting discussions we had were lost to the class. A shame, because we all learned a lot in our group. We just didn't adequately share the next day in class.

Tour of Cointreau. Similar to Giffard in how Cointreau is made. Cointreau also had a hall of all previous advertising for the Cointreau brand through the years which was very interesting. Finished the tour with a tasting and visit to the gift shop.

Dinner with Lex at a Thai restaurant in downtown Angers. Thai food was excellent.