France for the Summer

Jesuit students embark on cultural immersion trip to Toulouse.

Last summer, nineteen French studying Blue Jays and I got the amazing opportunity to immerse ourselves in French culture through an exchange program. We left New Orleans on June 2 and flew to London. After a long layover, we took the small flight into Toulouse, France and were greeted by our host families. The first weekend we were there was Mother’s Day in France. We all got to get to know our host families and do fun activities with them. I can tell you from personal experience, speaking a second language for the whole day is very tiring. Schools in France end a month later than schools here, so we were able to go to class with our host. School is very different over there. They have two or three periods a day which end and start at different times so you can come and go at different times each day. Also, there are no school sports teams, so school usually goes until around 5pm every day. We had the opportunity to show some of our pop-culture from New Orleans in the Saints, food, and famous rappers. The French students introduced us to the music of the famous French rapper JUL, but let’s just say we’ll stick with our stateside music.

Toulouse is a very beautiful small city. The streets are tiny! I had no clue how people didn’t hit everything. We were able to explore the markets and shop downtown. During the week we visited an airplane museum and the Airbus factory. we visited Toulouse-Albi, which was picturesque with an amazing cathedral. It also had an awesome museum for the art by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and had the most delicious restaurant I’ve ever been to. We also visited Carcassonne, a city inside of a castle built in the 1200’s. While we were there, we visited a museum of the inquisition, which was filled with brutal torture equipment. At the end of the week, we all went to a rope obstacle course in the trees and then watched the Toulouse rugby team in the league semi-finals match. Luckily for Noah Burgau, his host family went to Spain to attend it. 

Sadly, we had to say our goodbyes to our amazing host families and take the train to Paris. I have to say, I liked Toulouse a lot more than Paris. The architecture was astonishing, and the monuments were great, but it was just a fancy New York to me. While we were there, we visited The Jardin de Luxembourg, The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, and so much more. We had three walking tours in our two days of being there. Everyone ate so much, everything was so expensive, but most of it was worth the money. Then, the trip came to a close. We packed up with all the gifts we bought for our family and friends back home, and got on the plane to London, then to New Orleans. I am more than happy that I had the privilege of traveling to France with my friends, and I really hope we do it again. Y’all need to get ready when the French kids come here in the spring!