Finding my essence in challenges as a student in Beaune, France

Some of us learn well by doing. Some of us learn well by studying. By 2013, I felt like I had done a lot of doing, but not enough studying in viticulture and winemaking. With the support of Jason Lett at The Eyrie Vineyards and Delphine Gladhart, I was able to apply to a program at the Lycée Viticole in Beaune and get an internship at Domaine Pavelot in Pernard-Vergelesses. The 6-hectare family domaine is run by Luc and Lise Pavelot; a brother and sister team. 

France was magical! France was dreamy! France was HARD!

There was very little English spoken in the cellar or in the vineyard, and all of my classes at the school were taught completely in French. This was not an exchange program. I was just like any other French student in the French academic system. 😳

Being pulled so completely and totally out of my own culture, language, social structure, and family structure was incredibly hard. I had to figure out what my voice sounded like in French. I had to find ways to make familiar, yet different food for myself by shopping at grocery stores that carried no familiar brands. In class, I was trying to relearn chemistry taught in a totally different way in a language I was only beginning to grasp. 

Between the moments of straining and striving, and being desperately lonely, I found grace. I found the very, very center of myself. The person. Separate from my language, my culture, my identity as a sister, a daughter, a friend. I found my essence, my soul. For that reason, Pernand-Vergelesses, France will always be a place where many challenges were overcome and where my soul lives. 

~ Anneka, the Proprietress