It was Orientation Day in Le Cordon Bleu this morning. Woke up early and again took my time in getting ready for my first day of school ensuring that all my school stuff were packed and available. A few months ago, I had received an email from them stating that new students must attend orientation day and to bring along their safety steel-toed shoes - yes, you read right... steel-toed protection shoes (and who ever said being in the kitchen wasn't hardcore stuff?).
The e-mail said that there was a possibility that first day of baking demonstration may happen.
The train to school was held up a bit (less than 5 mins but still, in Paris time is of the essence) due to some metro/train accident. I arrived at the station at 9:28am and the e-mail stated that orientation starts at 9:30am sharp.
So I quickly made my way there... I was petrified of being late and just as I ran across the street, I could see a longggggg queue of students lining all the way up to the entrance. So it appears that I came just in time! *longgggggger sigh of relief*
What sucked was that I had to join in the queue... outside in the COLD. I swear, I could feel my fingers slowly freezing themselves solid. Luckily the school director (a short - and when i say short, i mean my-height-short-compared-to-freakish-Europeans-short and funny man who seems to be a nice fellow) kind enough to pop out and invite everyone to stand inside, albeit huddled all in one tight corner.
I apologies for the lack of photos... i think after signing in and getting my student card, I was in too much wayyyyyyyyy too much awe of the place. I couldn't believe I was in Le Cordon Bleu, sitting at their winter garden chit-chatting with other new students. A few long minutes of necessary introduction by staff members on-suit and then my group was taken for a quick tour of the school and its facilities.
If there was one thing I have to say about the building itself: OMG SMALL... (ok, make that two words...)
The school is quite small, composed of two buildings joined together: it was 4 floors high and oddly enough to me it seemed like the school was attempting to use every possible space available as a room. There was even one area, called the PS 1 (petite salle 1 = literally translated to "small room" ) where the ceilings were so low, I could just tip-toe and touch them!
There were SOOOO many rooms! But despite the small-sizes what I LOVED most about them were this:
1. The rooms were geared with some of the BEST kitchen equipments: wall to wall, there were endless counters of electrical stove-tops, ovens, tempering chocolate machines and god knows what else.
2. Best of all, smack down in the centre of the room was the REFRIDGERATED, yes... read it again: REFRIDGERATED marble counter table, placed on top of individual mini-refridgerators! I WANTTTT!!
After the quick tour, we were taken downstairs to receive our kits and dear god were they HEAVY! It was bad enough I had my handbag and my sports bag (with my steel-toed boots). Here, I had to juggle 3 additional bags which were all heavy individually.
I'm proud to say, I now have in my possession:
1. the Le Cordon Bleu knife kit, worth over US$1,000!!
(which hopefully this weekend I can get engraved for ID reasons)
2. a nice set of professional Le Cordon Bleu Chef uniform
(which must be dry-cleaned and pressed for each class)
3. additional free set of kitchen-aides like weight balance, LCB towels, chef hat, apron , tupperwares and what nots.
Awesome, isn't it? Also, I was given my class schedule... odd timetable indeed.
Unlike normal school schedule, Le Cordon Bleu classes only have start at 4 specific times:
- 8h30
- 12h30
- 13h30
- 18h30
Odd, eh? Even weirder: not every week is the same. It's sort of fluid. Sometimes I have class on Monday, other times I have class on Saturday... sometimes is 8h30, other times like... tomorrow is at 18h30.
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