Group photo in Carmes
At the Carmes
Today we had our orientation at the Dickinson Center and I am pleased to announce that we all made it to the center on time despite having many of our hosts get us lost during the dry run. We received our keys to the city, or at least to the center, and the tour of the “maison” or house, it’s a fantastic house with an extensive library and computers for all students to use. After a delicious lunch of three different types of soups and a salad, we took a guided tour of the city with Professor Eric Crema. He was so energetic and knew so much about everything Toulouse. There are multiple languages on street signs due to previous languages spoken in French history. This I found to be an interesting juxtaposition to the angst against immigrants in France that we had read prior to our trip. We found ourselves in the historical part of the city which is outlined by the road that used to be on the outside of a wall which encompassed the city. Now you can see which parts are old based on two things, the road signs and the roads themselves. The road signs are painted when they are old and the streets are narrower when they are older because of the lack of cars. After the tour we all met up at a coffee place to decide how we would get home because we were now in a different part of the city. It was a steller start to our adventure and look for more coming from Fallen.