Last weekend, Lafayette took us to Toulouse, France. The bus ride was ten hours long, but we broke it up by stopping in San Sebastian – a small coastal town in the north of Spain. It was very pretty.
Once we got to Toulouse, we were set off on our own to have dinner and get some sleep. The next morning we went to visit the Airbus factory. The only thing they showed us was the assembly hangar for the Airbus A380.
The A380 is the largest passenger airplane in the world and Airbus is pretty proud of it. I 
have flown on one only once. It was on my way to France the summer after my senior year of high school. I must say, the flight was one of the rougher flights I have experienced, but that could be attributed to the weather and not the airplane.
Regardless, it was really cool to see such a large plane being put together. Just looking at it, it seems impossible for something so large to get off the ground. After we saw the factory, we got to spend about an hour in the air museum that was on the property. I actually got to walk inside a Concorde, which was very exciting.
That night, we went to a newspaper printing facility and watched as they printed tomorrow’s newspaper.
The next day we visited two water treatment facilities. The first one was a clean water treatment facility. This one takes water from the river and treats it before sending it out to Toulouse’s taps. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures that would give away the location of the facility as it would be an ideal target for someone trying to harm the city. The second facility takes the raw sewage from Toulouse’s drains and toilets and treats it before it is released back into the river (downstream from the first plant). This plant did not smell nearly as nice as the first one…
On Sunday, we celebrated Wine 3/9 with a Lafayette alum who lives here in Madrid. Lafayette’s charter was granted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 9th, 1826. Lafayette alumni all over the world celebrate this day every year.
I’m excited to spend this weekend in Madrid. The weather is absolutely wonderful here. As I type this, I’m sitting here on the roof of the school enjoying the 85 degree sunny weather. A few Lafayette people are going to the Canary Islands this weekend with their geology class. For the rest of us, we have a picnic in Parque del Retiro on Saturday.
