Bonjour!
Well, I must say it's great to be back in Europe! I've been in Toulouse for about 4 days now, so I figured I'd given an update on my flight and first few days. I've included some of the photos of what I've done as well as some of the random things I've come across, such as Toulouse Monopoly.
On my flight to Amsterdam, I ran into a fellow U of M student in the program just out of coincidence, and he also happened to be on my flight to Toulouse as well. Both were good flights with very little turbulence. I was able to read my Star Trek novel while looking up occasionally at the GPS tracking. Eventually, I tried to sleep, but that didn't work, so I just watched The Blind Side and Dear John. Dear John was a little disappointing, but Sandra Bullock deserved her Oscar for The Blind Side. Anyways, when I arrived in Amsterdam, I went through customs, but we didn't have to do that again in Toulouse. I'm guessing they don't do customs between two European Union (EU) countries. The same is true when I went from Frankfurt to Barcelona a few years ago.
When the plane landed in Toulouse, it was really nice because you can see the Airbus facility on the one side of the runway. I was able to zoom in and get a few pictures of the planes they converted to carry A380 and other Airbus parts. Sadly, the A380 sitting outside was blocked by other planes, but I may be able to see one when we tour the Airbus facility later this week. Once we were off the plane, we ran into 3 other students from U of M who flew in from Paris. This made it a lot easier on our program leader since she was only expecting to find 2 of us. She showed us how to get on the airport shuttle to Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) where we boarded the metro to Facultè de Pharmacie. It's just about a 5-10 minute walk to the residences from that station.
Sadly, the entire trip was a bit of a distance with a 50 pound bag, so I would recommend traveling as light as possible especially since I was on the 5th floor of Supaero Residence 1. Also, there are no elevators, but I survived. I've also learned to appreciate a good cardio workout. I kind of crashed for a few hours, then got up to put more of my stuff away before falling asleep again. My room is a single room with a sink. There's only one plug, so I'm glad I brought a power strip. The bathrooms and showers are just down the hall.
The next day, June 3, our group leader took us out to the main metro station, Jean Jaurès, to get us month passes. All you need are passport sized photos (45mm high x 35mm wide), your passport, local address, and €6. Then we charged the card with the unlimited monthly plan which was €10. We went back to our campus and to a little grocery store just over the highway behind the campus. It's called le mutant which means the mutant. I just grabbed a case of juice and some pretzels since we don't have a refrigerator and I didn't want to carry more than that back to my room. That night we went to a little crêperie by the Capitole. It was actually pretty good. I guess it's traditional to have hard cider with your crêperie, so our leader ordered us a bottle. I must say it was an interesting and good experience. It also helped that she could read the menu to us. I ended up having an egg, ham, and cheese crêpe with a banana and chocolate crêpe for dessert.
We had orientation on Friday, June 4 at 9am. It was a little early for some of us, but breakfast was at 7:15-8:15am. Breakfast is just a bread, ceral, and yogurt, but at least we were able to get something to eat. The lecture hall where we had our first presentation was soooo comfortable! I could sleep in there with no problem. After doing some brief introductions, we went over to the ENAC campus which is just a five minute walk across the street. We had lunch over there and they showed us where our classes over there would be. After lunch we went over to Supaero again to see the offices of our student leader and one of our professors. We also met with our French instructors who gave an introduction to the French language. In a group of 28, only 8 have had previous experience with French. Then we hopped on a bus to take us to the downtown of Toulouse for a tour. We went to the Capitole and two churches; they were quite nice and very picturesque. After the tour, we were free to do whatever we wanted. A few of us went to just randomly walk around and find a place to eat.
Today, I slept in until about 1pm. Since we have the weekend free, I took a walk along the canal away from campus. It's a nice path with lots of people riding bikes and running along the canal. The canal is framed by lines of trees on each side. I've never seen this type of tree before, but they are quite tall. Occasionally, you'll come across a boat going down it, but it doesn't seem to be that busy. I eventually found where they put the boats in the water about 1-2 miles from campus. Later at night, I went out to dinner in the town with another student. We ended up finding the main river that runs thru the town as well as some kind of festival. I think it was a Moroccan festival, as that seems to be the tread with other events going on in the city. The metro stops running at 12am, so we decided to head back to campus around 11:30pm.
Tomorrow, it's going to rain, so I'm not sure how much sightseeing I will be able to do, but I will try. I brought an umbrella, and I am not afraid to use it lol! If all else fails, I'll look up possible trip destinations and local clubs to visit. I will probably post again next weekend. We are going to be pretty busy with trips this week, so look forward to hearing about Airbus, Carcassonne, and Marseille.
Au Revoir!
