Jul 11, 2022
Exciting excursion week to France - and a successful advertising campaign for the double degree program
Group photo of the tour group in the European Parliament
During Whitsun week, nine students and one professor set off for the southwest to the heart of Europe. Strasbourg - seat of the European Parliament and capital of Alsace - welcomed us with open arms after an adventurous outward journey. The flair of half-timbering and red sandstone accompanied the first evening with a cozy dinner in Strasbourg's city center, where we could let the impressions gained and explanations of Prof. Haller about the 142 meter high Strasbourg Cathedral sink in.
Our travel group on its way to the European Parliament
The next day impressed with a guided tour through the European Parliament including listening to parliamentary debates - especially a speech by Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, followed by a snack at the Institut Nationale des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) Strasbourg with a reception by, among others, the rector and the head of the civil engineering department. INSA Strasbourg, which is TUD's partner university for the Franco-German double degree, brought us together with U.S. exchange students and also gave us a tour of the campus and its soil mechanics laboratories. The day was rounded out with a trip on a bateau mouche - a sightseeing tour by boat - where we were able to pass through and examine two beautiful chamber locks, and a trip to Flam's for the best Strasbourg tarte flambée.
Visit to the European Parliament, mirrored on an escalator.
The next day took us to the train station before seven o'clock, from where we had a two-hour ride to Paris. We walked through busy streets past the Cathedral of Noôtre-Dame, which was under reconstruction, to the Centre Pompidou. We then traveled on the Paris Métro, which is sometimes life-threatening for German tourists - at least if you don't know about the lack of light barriers when closing the doors - to Cachan, the Paris neighborhood where ESTP is located. The well-known French engineering school put us up in a beautiful student dormitory and, after a short free time, took us on a guided tour of the neat Châteaux de Sceaux and then back to downtown Paris.
Probably the prettiest dorm ever, sleeping seven.
What would Paris be compared to Strasbourg if we didn't take a boat trip here as well? Together with three ESTP students, we saw an excitingly shaped 312-meter-high scaffolding, which was obviously forgotten to be dismantled again after the World Expo in 1889, and soon left the Seine to have a good dinner behind the Louvre.
On a sandwich in between, Paris Cachan - construction sites as much as the heart desires.
Construction site, four cranes - four people
The end of our excursion approached with the last highlights: a campus tour with special attention to the hydraulic engineering student laboratory, a presentation by Eiffage, and a visit to the EOLE construction site, a huge infrastructure project to build Europe's largest transportation hub with respect to the Métro over six floors deep. An engineer from Bouygues explained to us the challenges of a construction site of this scale. For example, it is not trivial to sink a tunnel boring machine of 90 meters in length within the city. Material removal also presents its own unique problems, which were solved in a way that had never been seen before. In all cases, we learned of innovative solutions such as the excavation of a corresponding shaft through which the tunnel boring machine could be lowered piece by piece by means of a cargo crane, as in an elevator. This was the end of the official part of our trip and everyone turned to their personal interests in Paris - but not without learning about Prof. Haller's photographic talent and special eye for reflections and mirroring. We owe most of the digitally captured memories to him.
Reflection in front of Fondation Louis Vuitton, Artist: P.H.
Finally, on Saturday, after a visit to the market and a little chat with local residents, we set off on our odysseée of over twelve hours of travel by Deutsche Bahn back home.
There is no denying that our excursion by no means failed to serve its purpose as a promotional event. Starting in September, seven of our nine student participants will begin their stay abroad for the double diploma in Strasbourg and Paris, respectively, more than we have had in a long time!
We would like to thank the organizers of this unforgettable trip, first of all Mr. Haller, in Strasbourg Mrs. Hammann and Fabiana and Mr. Graser in Paris.
Author: Ella Schneider
Illustration: Peer Haller, with comments by Marc Lilienthal