Week 4

Saturday we went to a rugby game. It was a great time especially with Owen and Ian being obnoxious cheer leaders... everyone was laughing at us but we had so much fun. Sunday a few of us stayed up to watch the Steeler's game. It might have been late but totally worth it, just for Harrison's freakin awesome interception and Holmes being a Rockstar!!!!!! Monday we went hiking and found a nice little cave that was probably someone's hut at some point because the rocks were roughly cemented together and packed too orderly to be natural. Tuesday we had a nice surprise in getting a snow day for our first class, French. We couldn't go to Albi so Tim taught us some "survival French" for an hour then we had most of the day to ourselves. It was our last class with Eric though, and I am a little disappointed because I thoroughly enjoy his religious pilgrimage class. We are going to Toulouse for our excursion so it should be great!


Wednesday was extremely busy but it was a nice trip. We left for Toulouse before 9 and visited two churches with Eric. The first was the largest Romanesque church. It was the second most popular place for pilgrimages in the Middle Ages for its collection of relics, however, during the French Revolution most of those relics were stolen. It is also known for having one of the first depictions of the seven deadly sins. The second church was in the Gothic Style and was the head of the Dominican order. It is no longer used as a church, but it does contain the relics of St. Thomas Aquinas. After that we went to lunch at the University in Toulouse which was a mad house. There were so many people it was hard to get your food and find a seat. But what really struck me was the diversity in the student population. There were students from all over the world. Airbus was an interesting tour. We were in the largest building in Europe and the room we over looked contained three A380 planes side by side. These planes were HUGE and they are double deckers so they can hold over 800 passengers at once. It is the largest passenger plane in use at the moment. After our tour, we went to meet student from Dickinson College at the French Resistance Museum. It was a very enlightening tour of why WWI and WWII are still difficult topics here in France. It also tied in with Thursday night's movie, "It's a Beautiful Life," which was about how a father did everything he could to protect his son from the horrors of the Holocaust.