CHS Spanish Students Enjoy French Dinner Cruise In Pittsburgh

On April 24, Spanish teachers Kevin Buynack and Louise Wilson of Central High School (CHS) took students to a French dinner cruise on the Gateway Clipper fleet in Pittsburgh.

While there, they met accidentally with teachers and students from other local schools, like Altoona and Tussey Mountain, who had also brought students for the French cruise.

Though only Spanish is offered at CHS, students in the World/Foreign Language Club wanted to expand their linguistic and cultural horizons.

Therefore, they chose to attend the French cruise instead of the Spanish one. (German cruises are also available on the boat company’s agenda.)

Upon boarding the ship at 5:30 p.m., French and Hispanic music was playing on the boat. Students enjoyed trying the chicken cordon bleu with béchamel sauce, one of the five mother sauces that are important in French cuisine.

Along with the cordon bleu, the Clipper fleet offered buttered noodles, green beans, potatoes au gratin, salads, and chocolate éclairs. The students had excellent comments about all the food they tried. Some even said that, while they may normally be picky eaters, they were willing to try something new and found that they enjoyed the food.

After dinner, there was a game, called un jeu d’élimination, or an elimination game. One student from each school had to guess the answers to questions about France and its culture.

Even though the CHS students had never had any French classes, one brave student was willing to try her hand at the trivia game. Aubrey Rhodes talked to Miss Wilson, who also has a French teaching degree, for about 10 minutes to cram for the trivia game.

Aubrey learned so much information in just a short time that she ended up the second runner-up in the competition.

Buynack and Wilson were extremely proud of her for her courageousness and for the amount of knowledge she had gained in such a short time. She was, after all, competing against students who had been studying French throughout their high school careers.

Following the trivia event, the students were treated to a dance and enjoyed swinging to popular songs – including songs from the past five decades – all while floating along the Monongahela and Ohio rivers. It was great to see all the students having so much fun while also learning more about other cultures.

Even though the day was long, all of the students agreed that the evening was very interesting and fun. They even learned some French along the way, especially when Wilson called their names before returning home and asked them to say ici instead of “here” during the roll call.