MANIFESTATION!
Anyhow. Yesterday INSA showed their discontent with Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to reduce the amount of money given to research and universities in France.
In strike
This meant that there was no lectures given after 10 o'clock and it was a "manifestation" at Capitole from 14h. I joined in the "manifestation" and we paraded through Toulouse to show how unhappy we are about the proposal!
Today it was a "assemblage générale", a meeting where "the cause" was discussed. I didn't attend, but it decided that INSA is at strike. That means there will be no lectures tomorrow.
Kristian looking a bit lost in the crowd
A HINT OF SPRING
It was also BEE's Potluck evening, an evening where everyone make a dish from their country that everyone can try out. A lot of people showed up at P'tit Kawa creating a great atmosphere!
Later I met Philippe, Jonathan, Jean and Pierre for quiz at Bar Danú. They have the "Quizathon" this week, meaning they do a bar quiz each night! It was really fun and we did quite well, second place before the final round. The final round was a disaster and we ended up in fifth position (of about 20 teams).
Velo Toulouse (Photo: fr.zil)
After this success we met Malena, Fadia, Annika and a few others at Bar Basque for a beer before we rented Toulouse City Bikes (Velib) and biked home! The weather was still warm, even at 2 o'clock, I hope spring is coming soon!
SUPERBAGNÈRES
It all started early Saturday morning. The bus set of from INSA at 07h00. After about 2 hours of driving the bus started the climb towards the station. It was snowing heavliy and the roads were slippery. The bus driver just barely managed to get the bus up the first (non-steep) hill.
It was obvious that we would need chains to get further.
But the bus driver continued, he drove slowly (stupid) towards the next, much steeper hill, where we of course started slipping. Instead of backing back down (about 100 meters) to put on the chains, the bus driver continued to push the gas and the bus started sliding out. The situation got really tense and climaxed as the rear part of the bus hit the crash barrier, the only thing stopping us from sliding off the road and down the valley.
Crash barriers, a good invention
Seriously! A professional driver SHOULD MUST know that it is irresponsible to drive a bus on non-spiked tires with 50+ passengers up a steep hill in heavy snow around zero degrees centigrade! I am strongly provoked by the driver and his lack of sense.
A chaotic situation
First, when we had already hit the crash barrier (freaking us out), the driver realized that it was time to put on the chains *@$£%#*.
So he spent about 30 minutes getting the chains on and the bus continued in a slow trotting speed towards the top. We finally got to Superbagnère and was ready to ski around noon, about 2,5 hours late.
Enough complaining about the French driver's driving skills. From now on this is a happy story! As I said, it was snowing quite heavily, so the visibility and contrast made it hard to see much. BUT: The slopes were amazing! I had, without a doubt, the most amazing day I have EVER had on skis! It was 20-40cm of powder everywhere, making it an incredible experience!
Heavy snow and low visibility (I'm buying goggles as soon as possible)
I spent most of the day with Kristian, Sindre and the other "INSA Norwegians". We had great fun cruising down the red and black slopes. The perfect stretch we found in the end of the day (see map above). Only a few skiers had been there before us and all we had to do was to lean back and do the perfect turns! An amazing feeling I won't forget for a long time!
Kristian cruising down Powder Lane!
This post is getting really long, so I'll cut the last part short. The trip home also took a long time and it took us 3,5 hours to return to INSA. After a fast taco dinner at Synnøve's, Kristian, Cate, Fadia, Synnøve and I went to Sindre and Erik's house warming party (crémaillère). They have a great apartment, and we had a good time!
Shortly summed up. Thank you for reading!
PROJET MULTI-DICIPLINAIRE
SciLab, the annoying crappy program
We're using Best Gauss Fitting (least square method on a Gaussian function) to calculate the exact position of star's center - which then will be used to figure out how the satelite is oriented (but that's not our business).
We're at the moment working with a program called SciLab, and it's a pain in the ass. It's like MatLAB for those who know that program, but is free. The problem with SciLab is that there is little information and it crashes every now and so often. Annoying!
Therefore we're sick and tired of working (but we've made some progress). Tonight I'm going to a Norwegian evening at Synnøve's before I visit Edith's place, where I've been invited for a house warming party (crémaillère)!
Tomorrow it's once again time for skiing, this time with Gliss INSA and yet another crémaillère, but this time at Erik and Sindre's place! It's going to be a great weekend!
I hope you all have had a good week so far and that you can use your weekend to restituate and charge your batteries for the next week!
THE END OF AN ERA
Therefore I worked a bit on the album Sunday morning before a bunch of us ate cake at a café in Place Saint Georges (I think). We've been there before and this time Nina, Kristian, Geir and I decided to order 8 pieces of cake (huge ones) - because we were hungry and we wanted to try many different cakes! It was fantastic, but a bit much!
Lots of cake (half of them)!
In the evening we went to a restaurant called Pottok. On the way home I couldn't find my phone so I figured I had left it at Pottok. I went towards the restaurant, but couldn't remember the way and got lost for about 10 minutes before I found the restaurant - closed.
Luckily I could hear people behind the metal door so I knocked to get their attention. After about five minutes of knocking a guy came out asking what I wanted. All the seven people in the restaurant started helping me out to find the phone. When one of them called my number I realized it had been in my hoody pocket all along. Embarrassing!
Monday = sports, I do badminton this semester. In the evening it was "Soirée parrainage" - which means foreign students can find French students to have as a tutor/helper. Before the party the "old" Erasmus gang had a dinner in R1 to get together one last time with Fie and Nina. Geir and I handed over the photo album - and it was a great success :)
After the soirée we had a goodbye session with tears, hugs and laughter. It's really sad that our favourite danish girls are leaving us. I'm really going to miss you both!
I got three hours of sleep because of a small breakfast we had with the girls at 07h. The day has been really hard, because of lacking sleep and because of the girls.
Everyone is a bit down, but we're trying to cheer ourselves up, that's why I'm heading over to Juha's to see a movie. Good night everyone!