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.