Airbus Tour and the blow-up A380

Today we had our first company visit to Airbus after a classroom session on French Business Law. The lecture was a little dry. but overall I have loved the professors here and their perspective on French culture and business: Yesterday we had a class on consumer behavior in France, and it was fascinating to learn more about how their religion. political ideas. and regional differences shape their daily life!

Airbus was a really neat tour! We had a guide show us a test room and explain how Airbus tested the first A380, world's largest plane! It took 9 years from start to finish, but now the plane can be assembled in Toulouse in 8 working days! The current production of these planes is 2 a month, but if you order one today (at a price of 375 million), it will not be ready for 8 years! They still have not seen a profit on their line though, because of the extreme costs for R&D and testing. We also had the chance to see the room they assembled the planes in and sit in a model A380! Very cool experience! We sensed a lot of resentment in our French tour guide's voice though when we asked if any American airlines had purchased any A380s... the answer was no! I would love if Delta purchased a few of these double decker planes- they were amazing and very luxurious!

The A380 we toured today at our visit! So impressive!

One of the most epic parts of the experience may have been the souvenir Alex was convinced into purchasing. He joked that he would buy this huge blowup A380 model if it was less than twenty euros, well it was only 14! So we blew it up and walked around Toulouse with it after our bus dropped us off. We sure got some looks and laughs in the streets. One man even used sign language to get us to try to fly it down the street. Hilarious. This thing had to be about 4 feet long and feet wide! So a group of 10 students or so go to a park near school to hang out for a little bit before returning to our homes for dinner, and these two little girls keep looking at the plane. We can tell they really want to play with it, so Mallory takes it over to them and they go crazy. The little girl of about age 2, with the cutest curls, had a field day throwing it up to make it fly. It was twice her size too! Their mom tried to get them to return it, but we told them to keep it. and I've never seen such a happy child. It was one of the sweetest moments on the trip! We made one little French girl happy with our corny souvenir!

I am really enjoying the bonding with all the friends on the trip! This was the perfect way to spend one of my last quarters at UC! Tomorrow we have a break in between class and the cookie plant tour, so I'm looking forward to some more adventures with my new, great friends! At least I have a week in Barcelona with the group as well! Courtney and I are going to dearly miss our host family. They have treated us like their own children, doing everything possible to make our stay wonderful. Thank God for social media and the Internet, which will make staying in contact much easier!