It's Official

I really wanted to write this blog post yesterday but alas, it didn't happen. So while I am writing this on Saturday I'll only be talking about what I did on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to recap you on the weekend!

Ok so Thursday: During our class at the Dickinson Center in the morning we did all of the paperwork to register for our respective French universities. We also talked about our host families and how that was going. Laura, one of our program coordinators/directors/I have no idea what her real job title is, handed out a sheet listing all of the things we should have talked about with our hosts by now and I had done all of them which made me feel good. In the afternoon we had another randonée urbaine with M. Créma. The tour was all about how the city got it's wealth. We visited the former residences of all of the rich merchants and they were absolutely beautiful. From the exterior these "hôtels" as they're called, look plain but once you walk through the gate in to the interior courtyard, they're really stunning. We also visited an incredible church, the Jacobins. Between the stained glass and the amazing vaulted ceiling, my inner art history nerd was dying. We also walked through the three gardens near the Dickinson Center, all of which would make for excellent picnic spots in the future. After the tour, a couple of us went to have crepes. I figured it was necessary for my first crepe in Toulouse to be nutella and banana and it did not disappoint. When I got home I spent time chatting with my host mom Catherine until dinner. She was asking me about sororities and fraternities at Dickinson because those don't exist in France. It was a really interesting conversation. After dinner I organized a little bit and went to bed really early because the next day...

Jardin des Plantes

Jardin Royal

Hôtel d'Ulmo

Hôtel d'Ulmo

Fondation Bemberg - Hôtel d'Assézat

Fondation Bemberg - Hôtel d'Assézat

Jacobins

Jacobins

Jacobins

Jacobins

Jacobins

I had to be up super early to visit le Mirail (pronounced me-rye), the university in Toulouse where I'll be taking my art history classes. The official name is the Université Toulouse II - Le Mirail. It took about 30 minutes to get there once I was on the bus. I have to take the bus to the metro to get there which really isn't as bad as it sounds. The worst part is waiting for the bus. It's not like I can just roll out of bed and be at Weiss in five minutes anymore. Once at the Mirail we split into two groups to go on a tour of the campus. We had to stop in each of the buildings because the schedule of classes is posted outside of each department and we needed that info to pick our classes. The campus isn't that big and it's not exactly pretty (trying to be nice and not say it's ugly) but it's fine. It's not where I'll be spending most of my time. After the tour we hung out for a bit in one of the buildings and then had lunch at the "caf." During the afternoon we played a scavenger hunt type game to make sure we knew our way around the campus, handed in our paperwork, got a tour of the offices for international students, got some free stuff (pens! yay!) and got our student ID cards. I felt so official (You were waiting for the title of the post to come in to play weren't you?) after getting my new card. It was sad replacing my Dickinson card in my wallet but it'll be back in it's proper spot next year. Once we were finished at the Mirail a few of us went to the Jardin des Plantes to hang out and relax after a busy morning. We had ice cream and sat in the grass which felt very French for some reason. I had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant with Caroline and then we met Sarah and Kathleen for drinks at an Irish pub. I unfortunately had to go home early because my stomach was killing me. I guess that's what I get for trying to be a vegetarian in France.

Mirail