¡Viva España!

Hola!

Well Monday was our last free day, so people were starting to head back from wherever they had gone over the break. For me it was just a lazy day since I knew it would be my last time I could sleep in for quite a bit.

After a few days of rest, it was back to class on Tuesday for more aerodynamics of propulsion systems. We then had lunch and were allowed to go back to our rooms to change for our technical visit to Liebherr Aerospace in Toulouse. Liebherr is one of the largest private companies in Europe with similar manufacturing to that of Caterpillar in the US. This plant designs and manufactures air conditioning unit for many aircraft models. Overall, it was more informational on how air is taken in from the engine and cooled it down to room temperature. I also learned that there is a Liebherr Aerospace plant in Saline, Michigan which is only ten minutes from campus.

Wednesday, was a full day of classes. We had two hours of aerodynamics in the morning followed by French, lunch, and three more hours of aerodynamics. Although, this was our last day of aerodynamics so we were all trying to review anything we didn’t understand before our last quiz on Friday.

On Thursday morning, we had a presentation on the Specialized Master Programs offered by ISAE and ENAC. Due to the differences in the French and American education systems, they suggest that students either get their master’s degree in the US then go a for a specialized master in France or go into industry for three years before applying to the French program. The ISAE programs are geared towards aircraft design and systems which is similar to the U of M master’s program. I guess ISAE and U of M have a very good relationship to the point where they allow students to take some classes in the US and some in France, but this is done on a case by case basis. ENAC has a specialty in management of airlines, airports, and air traffic. In fact all of the air traffic controllers in France and many other countries were students at ENAC. Both schools run their programs so that it only takes about a year. Half of the year is spent in classes and the other half is spent at an internship. We didn’t get to hear about ENSMA programs since no one was able to come down from there on that day; however those programs are similar to ISAE with an emphasis on combustion and propulsion. We then had our French class and lunch followed by a tour of CEAT. CEAT is a local company that specializes in the testing of aircrafts and aircraft components. They do landing gear, drop, electromagnetic, and many other types of testing. We were able to see the testing facilities for the A400M landing gear and the Mirage 2000 structure testing.

Well it was time for our last quiz on Friday. I don’t think it went as well as anyone hoped, but we did our best. Overall, we were happy to be done with our quizzes. We then had our last French class where we learned probably the most addictive song I’ve ever heard. It’s still stuck in my head, and I’ve been thinking of every other addictive song to get it off my mind. Anyways, we had lunch and then walked down the canal to our last technical visit to Intespace. They mainly handle the testing for satellites before they are launched. Since we were entering the testing rooms we had to put on shoe covers, a white coat, and a hair net. I have to say it was a pretty impressive place, but it was also nice to finally see the space side of France’s aerospace industry. After the visit we all rushed back since some of us had trains to catch and the others had to pack to catch trains the next day since this was the beginning of our 5 day break. I had to do laundry, pack, and get to bed early to wake up for an early Saturday train to Barcelona, Spain.

We left our dorms around 5:45am so that we would have enough time to walk to the metro and travel to the train station. We ended up making it just in time to catch the train to Latour de Carol, France where we had to switch to the Spanish Train system to take us to Barcelona. Our train to Latour de Carol took an extra half an hour to get the border, so we ended up missing our train to Barcelona. Luckily, there was another train to Barcelona later in the day, so we went into town to look for lunch. There really wasn’t much of a town it was basically a village of maybe 100 people, but we did find a nice place run by an older couple. After eating, we found our way back to the train station to catch our train to Barcelona. It took us until about 6pm before we got into Barcelona, but we still had time to go visit a few places after we checked into our hostel. Since La Sangrada Famila was just about 5 minutes away from our hostel we started there. I had been there three years earlier, but I never got the chance to go inside. The cathedral is still under construction, and probably won’t be done for another 10-20 years. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí who started the construction by himself back in 1882. Even though it’s not completed, it is probably one of the most impressive buildings I’ve ever seen. I am looking forward to coming back after the church is completed. We then went out to eat dinner and walk down the main road called La Rambla in Barcelona which is a collection of several streets that make up the shopping and entertainment center of Barcelona.













We began Sunday by heading off to Park Guell which is another achievement of Gaudi. Like of most of his work, the park’s architecture is inspired by nature such as the pillars designed to look like palm trees. We then went into town to check out the farmer’s market, but that ended up being closed. Luckily, we were able to find a store nearby that made the same fruit drinks as I found in the farmer’s market during my last trip to Barcelona. We also walked over to another cathedral in Barcelona, but we could only check out the courtyard since it was Sunday and church services were going on. The courtyard is pretty interesting mainly because they have about 10 white geese in the middle area which I guess they walk down the aisle of the church for certain religious events. Afterward, we went to the museum containing the excavated Roman ruins and then to go shopping for souvenirs. This was also the night of the World Cup Finals of the Netherlands vs. Spain. We watched the game is a square by Montjuic on big screens that they had set up. Everyone was all dressed in red and yellow waving the Spanish flag plus you couldn’t even move in around since everyone was trying to get as close to the screens in order to see. Once the game started, things got very tense. By the end of the first and second halves we were still tied 0 to 0. We went into the automatic 30 minutes of overtime which would be followed by penalty kicks if we were still tied. Then it happened. In the last five minutes of overtime, Spain scored. I can’t even describe how crazy the crowd became. I knew I was beyond excited, and I can’t even begin to understand how excited the Spanish must have been. People were in the streets celebrating to the point where the riot police were called in. I got out of there just in time because I guess they the police started to charge the crowd to get it to disperse. I headed to the Hard Rock Café after I got out of the crowd. It’s sort of tradition in my family to go get a shirt from the Hard Rock Café anytime we go to a new city. It was just before midnight, so we had to catch the last metro train to our hostel.




















Monday was another early morning since we had to catch a train to Madrid. The train actually ended up being part of the high speed train system that they were still building when I was last in Spain. It was a very comfortable train, we didn’t feel any acceleration and it ended up at a cruising speed of 300 km/hr. We went to find our hostel in Madrid and then to explore the city. We found the palace of the king and watched the changing of the guard. On our walk around the palace we found a crowd of people who were waiting for the Spanish Soccer Team to arrive and pay homage to the King of Spain. We waited and saw the team come in on buses. It was late in the afternoon so we kept walking around the town until we found one of the more famous parks in Madrid complete with a pond with row boats for rent. Afterward, we went looking for a good place to have tapas and sangria.

















Our main goal on Tuesday was to head to El Escorial which is a former residence of the Spanish monarchy and monastery with a basilica. It’s an hour outside of Madrid by train, but it’s worth the ride. I have to say it’s impressive from the outside, but the inside is just amazing. The basilica rivals the Vatican in many ways. After the monastery we went to explore the gardens around the monastery and then off to lunch. We actually found a very good Chinese restaurant which allowed some of our friends to order in Chinese. We then walked back to the train station to head back to Madrid. We explored the area around our hostel until it was time to eat. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, we ended up finding the oldest restaurant in Europe, but after we say the menu and its prices we realized we were out of our league and found a much cheaper restaurant to relax for the rest of the night. After that I went off to find the Hard Rock Cafe in Madrid to get myself a t-shirt.












We left Madrid on Wednesday morning, but we also realized it was going to take us until 8pm to get back to Toulouse. We had to transfer trains twice and we also had lunch at one of our transfer points. It was a long day of traveling, but we had a great break. It was also Bastille Day, which is basically the French Independence Day celebrating the storming of the Bastille in Paris. There were fireworks downtown, but we were too tired to go back into town after we lugged all of our stuff back to the dorms.

Well we have just two days left of our program, and then I am off to Paris before heading home. I’m very excited to see Paris, but I still can’t wait to be home.