ENSMA Classes Part 2

Wednesday June 23
I've now been in France for three weeks, so I'm halfway done with my program. Time is absolutely flying. Today was interesting, spent the morning discussing combustion and the afternoon calculating flame temperature. I never thought chemistry would actually be useful, but it helped me get through the stuff we went over today.
More epically though, class got out early which allowed us to watch most of the USA soccer game. We watched the first half with a laptop connected to the classroom's projector, then we heard it was on TV down in the school's bar. The game was extremely stressful, on top of the fact that a ref screwed us out of another goal. Soccer really needs instant replay. When Donovan scored, we went wild and started chanting USA! USA! I wish I had pictures or video, but I was too distracted with American pride. Interestingly enough, we decided to celebrate the American victory with Indian food. I really enjoyed it, I had a sausage appetizer and lamb curry for dinner with a honey dough dessert.

Thursday June 24
Played with a lot of fire in the afternoon:

We were studying fuel/oxidizer ratios, flame structure, air effects on gaseous products, etc. Also, I was inducted into an elite potato cannon firing squad after training on the Potator.

Notice how he's cringing from my battle cry and sheer manly power (seriously these things were loud, they gave us ear plugs but we were scaring people walking by 600 meters away). We mixed propane in the chamber and it was ignited by a filament. This was actually the subject of a legit university study. Combustion quiz tomorrow.

First Classes at ENSMA

Monday June 21
Quiz went okay, a lot of true false, which is the bane of my academic existence. The new campus we're studying at is called ENSMA and it's really cool. It has a lot of futuristic architecture and is situated next to an amusement park which we will be visiting on Friday.

We studied detonics in the afternoon and then rode back in a bus to our hotel. My room at the hotel has a cool view of the town square:

Apparently since today is the summer solstice, it means everyone in France who can play an instrument hops out on the streets and goes for it. We saw digeridoos, accordians, rock bands, trumpets and trombones, and some African style drums. It was really entertaining. In the evening we went out into the square next to our hotel and there was a big dance concert with a DJ. All of the American students worked their way to the front and we fist pumped and jumped around for about an hour straight. I was too exhausted after this to move on to the next dance party, but they were going all night based on the music that woke me up at 2 in the morning. I've decided the US needs to start a reciprocal Summer Solstice Celebration (SSC).
I should mention that my hotel has free room service and really good hot chocolate. Totally awesome. I feel like half of the things I talk about in this blog are food but whatever. I mean seriously, who doesn't love Nutella croissants delivered to their door in the morning?

Tuesday June 22
The sun stays up forever here. It sets after 10 and rises before 6, I know we're having the longest days of the year right now, but this is crazy. Today we had another combustion class at ENSMA. Next to the labs, this was my one of the better classes we've had. It was really interesting learning about flame structure, fuel ratios, etc. for airplane propulsion. We'll be visiting their labs on Thursday which I'm really pumped for. Went on a tour of Poitiers in the afternoon and then walked to a Chinese buffet.
Some pictures from the tour...



We got to the Chinese buffet before it opened, so we walked around a park nearby for half an hour and saw some cool birds and a lot of rectangular trees.
COOL BIRDS

RECTANGULAR TREES

The Chinese buffet was absolutely amazing. I literally did not put anything on my plate that wasn't tasty. If I tried to list everything I ate, it would take a while, so let's just say I lived up to the American tradition of eating until it hurts. I was gonna call it an early night, but I wound up watching the Argentina Greece and South Korea Nigeria games. I seem to have a World Cup bug, but I doubt I'll follow soccer after it's over. It's extremely fascinating to me that countries with such large socio-economic disparity can come together on a soccer field and have competitive matches. This trip has done a lot to broaden my world view.

Long Bus Ride

Sunday June 20
I've come up with a new motto for our bus company: We'll get you there...eventually. Somehow a google maps trip of 4:30 took over six hours, in addition to a three hour lunch break. It wasn't that bad though, Southern France is really pretty.

It's kind of like driving through the midwest in the US, but more hilly and with vineyards instead of corn fields. When we stopped for food in Saint Emilion, it was fairly scenic. We also saw a random procession of robed people.

In a word, I would describe the place as quaint. I was fairly adventurous on food, went with lamb chops for lunch and Japanese kebabs with raw fish and wasabi for dinner. I was still really hungry though so I grabbed a hamburger after the Brazil Ivory Coast game. Soccer really needs instant replay, watched an obvious handball lead to a goal for Brazil, and this two days after America got screwed by a bad call. Quiz over Aircraft Structures tomorrow, a little nervous about this one.

Lab Work and Lazy Saturday

Thursday June 17
We were shipped over to the third member of the GEA schools this morning to study in their laboratories. GEA is comprised of three member schools: ISAE (where I'm living), ENAC (where I've done most of my studies), and ENSICA (where we went today). This was by far my favorite day of classes so far.

We studied the effect of a static load on the landing gear for one of the military aircraft produced by Airbus. Between all of the engineers in my group we remembered quite a bit about strain gauges in a Wheatstone bridge, Hooke's law, and material properties which was cool. In the afternoon, our group went over to the composites lab and learned about the materials airplanes are made of. It was really interesting since I've never taken a materials class. At the end, we layered sheets of carbon fiber prepreg together to study the effect of fiber direction on the ability of the material to support loads in different directions. We only did 8 layers, but airplanes have 120 layers for their fuselages. We made a vacuum bag and left the carbon fiber with the materials guy so he could bake it overnight and show us the results. Rode the metro back and then watched the first half of France and Mexico in the downstairs foyer. I was pretty tired so I went to bed and missed all of the action in the second half. My buddy who roots for Mexico had a fun night after their victory.

Friday June 18
Bus driver got lost on the way to class this morning, 20 minute ride took an hour longer than it was supposed to, but it gave me time to update my blog entries so I didn't mind too much. We analyzed the stresses in the different elements of a wing structure under a bending moment. The carbon fiber plates turned out really awesome, definitely an interesting lab. Afternoon classes were cancelled which was extremely convenient because the USA Slovenia game started at 4pm. We went into town to watch it at a bar and had a good time. The crappy call by the ref was ridiculous, totally cost us an amazing come from behind win. I was satisfied with the tie though since we were down by so much to start off with. England Algeria was really boring, US needs to win their next game to advance out of group play.

Saturday June 19
It rained pretty much all day, stayed inside doing laundry, listening to music and grabbing movies and TV shows from other students in the program. Not a bad day, but uneventful.

Eurocopter and Returning to Class

Monday June 14
Originally, we were going to visit Daussalt today, but that go canceled, so we had the morning to ourselves to walk around Marseilles. I looked for souvenirs because I really liked the city, but couldn't find anything I wanted which could fly back home. There were some really cool old boat navigation compasses in a specialty shop. Following the French tradition, we took over a 2 hour lunch with the program. As Americans we spent about 20 minutes eating the 4 courses, 40 minutes talking about life, and an hour talking about how weird it is that we were in the restaurant for 2 hours (which was admittedly a little boring). Following this, the bus took us to Aix en Provence where we checked into a new hotel. We wandered the city and got dinner, but it's not that interesting of a place so I didn't take any pictures. I watched the World Cup game that night with my roommate who is a huge soccer fan (since he is originally from Mexico) and edited my partner's report of our Airbus visit.

Tuesday June 15
Got up at 6 to check out of the hotel. We visited Eurocopter in Marignane from 9 to 12. That makes five visits to cities in France in the two weeks I've been here...pretty crazy! Seems like everyday we go on a technical visit it rains which is kind of a bummer but at least we're doing something interesting inside. Again, no cameras allowed, but we got to see the manufacturing of the star for blade attachment, the engine production, and final helicopter assembly. We also watched a couple minutes of helicopter testing which was pretty sweet. The consensus was that most people preferred the Eurocopter visit over Airbus, probably because college kids love free handouts. Another 2 hour lunch at a local restaurant and then we drove back to Toulouse. Early morning meant early bedtime.

Wednesday June 16
Did some math today which was a nice change of pace. We solved for forces on a wing spar supporting the engine mount. Tried to play basketball in the afternoon, but the French students were using all of the courts for soccer. They refused to use the soccer field instead so we walked about a mile down the canal to find basketball courts. Right when we got to the park and realized there weren't any courts there, it started raining like mad. It slowly picked up until we were caught in a downpour of the biggest rain drops I've ever felt. It dropped about 20 degrees in 15 minutes. We started to run back because the trees we were under weren't really protecting us. It was an interesting 10 minutes of slogging through the rain. I literally could not keep my eyes open because it was raining so hard, I was just jogging to stay warm. It finally let up as we got back to the dorms, all in all it was kind of fun.

Cassis

Sunday June 13
Hopped on a bus from our hotel at 10 to go to Cassis. I think we're close to a mountain range because we had to drive over a large hill/small mountain to get there. Cassis was amazing. Crystal clear water that let's you see straight to the bottom for as far out as you're allowed to swim.

Europeans are definitely a little more free about showing skin at the beach than Americans...I'll leave it there without going into great detail. After grabbing some food, seven of us rented kayaks to paddle around in the Mediterranean. This might be my favorite experience of the trip so far. We only had them for an hour, but we paddled around a cliff to reach the next beach over from us and the view was awesome. I didn't bring my camera in the water (which was probably a good thing as a couple of people capsized and fell in). We saw a terraced vineyard on a hill and some awesome sailing boats. We left around 6 and then went to a pizza place to watch Serbia and Ghana. Skyped with the family in the evening...it was good to see them.

Hook Em...Nuff Said

Marseilles

Saturday June 12
Packing in the morning worked well, got up at 6, packed and showered, then jumped on the bus to Marseilles. It's about a 4 hour bus ride from Toulouse, I turned on my iPod and slept most of the way there. When we got to Marseilles, we checked into our hotel which is located in an old military compound. It was actually pretty nice and situated close to the city harbor. After putting our bags in the room, we went out to explore. There is an amazing church at the top of a hill near our hotel which we decided to hike up to. Any pictures I post can hardly do justice to the scenery surrounding the hill and the church itself. Luckily, we had great weather.
OUTSIDE

INSIDE

When we got back, everyone was pretty hungry so we went and got mussels and french fries since it's a coastal town. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the mussels. I doubt they would taste like anything without being drenched in a garlic butter sauce, but that made them really good.
BEFORE

AFTER

In the evening we found the USA England game on TV in the city. Unfortunately this was after the England goalie failed miserably at his job so I couldn't give the Brits sitting next to us crap. The weather outside was nice, so we were watching on a big screen TV sitting at a table outside one of the pubs. Went dancing at a local club after this and had a great time.

Carcassonne

Friday June 11
Hopped on bus for an hour in the afternoon and went to Carcassonne. This place is a mad defensive castle in south France. I bought a little book there to learn more about the place because I was too busy taking pictures during the guided tour to listen to details.

The surrounding walls enclose a castle, basilica, about 90 current residents and tons of buildings converted into tourist shops. Bought a Nutella crepe from a stand in the city, I think I'm hooked.

In the basilica, there was a singing group, which was lucky because they were really good and it was cool to hear the acoustics of the old building. I really want to hear an old organ in action, I bet it's impressive. Unfortunately I can't upload the video because it's over 100MB. Was too tired to pack before leaving for Marseilles in the morning, so I went to bed early and set my alarm for 6 get up and pack.

First Classes and Airbus Visit

Monday June 7
First day of classes, prof is awesome. Claude Haillot is the epitome of a Frenchman. He rocked a white linen shirt on the first day of class. Learning about European airplane regulatory system and governing bodies. Not much else to report.

Tuesday June 8
Added a new class to the aircraft regulation...airport economics. Not really up my alley, but it's interesting to learn because I've never even thought about how people make money off of airplanes (guess that shows how much of an engineer I am).

Wednesday June 9
Had the third epic fail of the trip...dropped my phone in the toilet. It was an extremely unfortunate event. When I pulled it out of my pocket, the back popped off, what happened next is literally too disturbing to report so I will spare you the details. Went to Airbus this afternoon, it was a nice break from listening to lectures. I almost forgot to bring my passport which would have been a bummer. I wish I could show some pictures of the place because it was pretty sweet, but they didn't let us bring cameras in (I don't know how they found out I'm a spy for Boeing). We saw the assembly line for the new A380 airplane and the A330 airplanes. The A380 was gigantic, I didn't even know a company was working on a double decker airplane, but apparently, there's already some in operation in Asia. I'm starting to use my computer as an alarm clock, but I never know what time it is walking around town.

Thursday June 10
Went to class. Between waking up and going to breakfast, walking to class, eating lunch, going back to class, waiting an hour for dinner and then eating dinner, I'm generally busy from around 7am-8pm.

Sunday Excursion

I decided to roll solo into town on Sunday since I figured no one else in the group would want to run in along the canal. I think that the trail is about 5 miles round trip to Grand Rond and I would guess I walked another 4 miles through the city. French people are clearly more fit than the average American, probably because of all the walking, but they make up for it by smoking a lot.

The public parks are wonderful here, I watched dance lessons, singing troupes and badminton games all over Grand Rond and the surrounding parks. Toulouse reminds me a lot of Washington D.C. Food establishments are scarce on Sundays, so I ate at McDonald's in lieu of braving the French menus and ordering process. One can only get so far pointing like a monkey, and at least I knew what I was ordering.

For the most part, I have relied on other people in the group for communication so far. I'm hoping my French improves in the coming weeks with the classes we will be taking. It's been reasonably humbling so far trying to navigate Toulouse with no prior knowledge of French.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures for today since I didn't want to run with my camera, but I found another spectacular church building called Cathedrale St-Etienne. It had a really memorable array of metal molds placed in pillars around the alter which depicted Christ's journey from sentencing to death on the cross.

Saturday Exploration - Eglise St-Pierre des Chartreux

This was a lucky find while wandering back from La Garonne.



Crucifix

Saturday Exploration - Musee des Augustins

After we saw the parade, we went into this museum to take advantage of free admission. It was a great visit, I strongly recommend it if you ever head into Toulouse. They had different paintings and sculptures from the 14th century through the 19th. Each of the rooms was located in a different section of the museum which encompassed the central garden.



A 15th century sculpture of the virgin Mary which has been restored numerous times.



I love the architecture of all the old churches around Toulouse. I wanted to go up and take a picture of the organ, but the staircase was too old to climb.



There were also a lot of really ornate Renaissance paintings in the giant hall of artwork in the museum. Most of them involved naked people though, so I will forgo posting them in case it violates the Blogger policy.

Saturday Exploration Part 1

We ran into some Italian exchange students on our way out of the dorm on Saturday and they told us about some cool exhibits to see around town since the first weekend of every month means free museum entry for students. After grabbing lunch, we saw a French parade, so I took some video:



These guys weren't messing around either. It was a small celebration, but we saw them across town 2 hours later in a park by La Garonne. There were some guys spray painting a giant canvas in the park, but I liked the view across the river better...

Meeting the locals

On Friday night, we had an interesting conversation with a couple of local guys while looking to eat downtown. They took us to a cool place called Modern Fast Food, where we ate Kebabs. In France, that means a Pita wrap. We talked about some stereotypes each country has for the other and they gave us some advice on picking up French ladies. They currently work at a funeral home burying bodies for 14 Euros per hour and hope to open their own business in the next couple of years. I can honestly say I have never met an undertaker before. Thanks Francois and Matteius for the fun night.

Toulouse Tour - Le couvent des Jacobins

This convent was built in the Gothic architectural period when buildings were less ornate and more subdued. It was built entirely of brick, but painted to look like stone. I took a video of us entering the convent, again, I was kind of a noob with filming sideways.



The stain glass windows were awesome.



Hook Em!

Toulouse Tour - Basilique St-Sernin

This Basilica for Saint Sernin was started in the 11th century and completed in the 14th century. One half was built more with stone because the church was wealthier at the start, but it was finished with brick on the other half because the church had less money when construction was picked up again in the 13th century.



As a side note, this place is an important stop on one of the larger pilgrimages across Europe.

Toulouse Tour Part 1

We had a long, awesome tour on Friday, to start off, here's the capitol by day:



And this legit old guy playing some instrument I've never seen before. I didn't realize that the video doesn't flip, so I was taping vertically but really it just made it sideways.

Exploration Day 1

Canal by the dorm where I'm staying on the SUPAERO campus



Toulouse Capitol at night



First dinner...extremely good

Arrival in Toulouse

Luckily my program coordinator found me magically in the Toulouse airport. Apparently huddling in a group with three other lost UT students and shouting her name for 10 minutes was a good plan.

Rode the bus into town and then took the metro...got a baguette sandwich, which apparently means break your teeth on hard bread crust. I'm told that means it's nice and fresh, but I'm skeptical.

Here's the first photo I took after getting off the shuttle

Blogs from the Airport

Had a couple hitches in getting to Toulouse...here's the posts I wrote up in the airport

Entry 1: Tuesday June 1 DFW 4:03PM
First fail of the trip...spilled complimentary drink on myself during flight from Austin. Good News: Found underwear and shorts in DFW terminal. Bad News: $20 underpants...thank you Brooks Brothers (seriously, you were a lifesaver...as much as I wanted to ride commando to Europe, I would rather ride in exorbitantly priced 'fancy boxers').
Addendum to Entry 1: Thank you chicken sandwich from Fuddrucker's for making me feel better

Entry 2: Wednesday June 2 CDG 11:50PM
Do not fly EasyJet and expect to bring any more than 20kg of luggage...12 Euros for each kg over the weight limit (OUCH). Also, 2 bags does not get you any extra mass, only a false sense of security