Category: 2017-Fall

A Look Into The Typical Week of a GTL Student

Life at GTL is great…and sometimes complicated and awesome and busy. Maddy tells a tall tale of her average week at GTL in her latest blog post.

I understand not all of you reading this are current GTL students, so I’m just going to delve into the (slightly exaggerated) average week of a GTL student for those of you that may be wondering what it’s like.

Monday Morning: Welp, I’m still pretty exhausted from the weekend, but I’ll make it up later. All I have to do today is buy groceries (I really have to stop eating baguette sandwiches), get a head start on all the homework I have due this week, and maybe I’ll even have time to go to the gym or run at some point.

Monday Midday: Okay, so I may have been weak and bought another Fermie Chaud (curry baguette sandwich) for lunch from the sandwich place, but I swear I’ll go get groceries this evening, and I’ll cook everything else this week. Oh, you want to play ping pong? A few rounds can’t hurt – I have tons of time!

Monday Evening: Yes, I may have just played ping pong for two hours and foosball for one, but I’m going to the grocery store, and I’m cooking dinner! I’ll have a few hours to study afterwards and just do the rest tomorrow. Wait, how long does the lab homework take? Are you serious?? How is that even…okay, grocery store tomorrow, La Boite de Pizza tonight. It’s healthier than any pizza in the US probably. Maybe?

Tuesday Morning: Alright, today is the day! I’m going to catch up so hard from yesterday, and it’s going to be awesome. I still haven’t caught up on sleep because of that lab homework, but as long as the coffee machine works, then so can I! Or I’ll be like my dear friend Ben and bring a literal coffee maker to GTL. After class though.

Tuesday Midday: Only have one more class later, time to sit down and start on more homework. Wait…you didn’t book the hostel? I thought we agreed on that one with the nice rooftop…it’s totally booked? Are you serious? Okay, let’s figure it out – we only have two days before we leave and this homework can wait. I guess I’ll get another baguette for lunch.

*You can imagine how Wednesday went.*

Thursday: I’m exhausted, I’ve only eaten white bread this week and you’re telling me I’m leaving for London tonight when? In two hours?? Well, here we go.

And repeat.

Madrid: Tapas and Parks

What do you think of when you travel? The history? The sights? How about the food – because Maddy took Madrid by the food! Check out her latest blog to read more about the bites and the sights.

I promise I’ll talk about other things as well, but I just have to comment on the food first and foremost. Skip ahead if you don’t care about cuisine (I don’t understand you, but I respect it). I love food! I love food. I love it so much, and it breaks my heart to see people not care about it as much as I do. Madrid is the capital of Spanish food (as well as the capital of other stuff, like the country or something), and I was sure not to squander my appetite before arriving. Like Barcelona, you can get any Spanish food as well as any Spanish-conquered food, so there’s half the globe of options. One thing I knew I had to have was arepas: they’re corn cakes  loaded with your favorite toppings like plantains, steamed pork, and mole sauce. We found a place near Plaza Mayor (which is a big, historic square with not much actually to it) and downed some nice arepas within seconds. Not sure what these candies were but they were super good and just fun to have.

Tapas were incredible, ranging from octopus and fried calamari (Madrid is pretty far from the coast, but they love seafood) to shredded cow tongue and mojo chicken. I thought the classic churros and chocolate I’d dreamed of included hot, drinkable chocolate, not literal melted chocolate: so when they were out of churros and they looked at me funny for just ordering the latter half, I was given a strange glance and soon realized why.

Do not be like me and try to drink melted chocolate by itself, your stomach and wallet will thank you later.

Now on to normal city highlights. Overall, the city was very vibrant and bustling. Most of the streets are narrow, and the buildings all around you are quite tall, so it feels a little claustrophobic, but also could be cozy. It’s a lot like many European cities in which many roads lead to a big plaza or square, but Madrid is special in that there is ALWAYS someone playing music or dancing in them. It felt like we just followed one music scene to the next, consisting of anything from steampunk jazzy-funk to African drumming circles. Right near Plaza Mayor was a guy playing the accordion to “Despacito,” and both Spaniards and a group of Asian tourists were getting down.

One thing we loved was the amount of parks, and these aren’t some dinky half-dog park half-playground parks. One of the main parks is five times the size of Central Park, and the one we spent the most of our time in (El Retiro) was also incredibly massive and absolutely beautiful. The fall leaves were right at their peak turning colors – lucky for us – and we bicycled all over the place.

On a side note, I would kind of recommend renting bikes in Madrid, but also not- some parts are super hilly and don’t have bike lanes, so if you’re wimpy like us, your day may require a lot of bike-walking. We went to the top of the hill of El Retiro to see the skyline and the Temple de Debod for sunset. For some reason or another the president of Egypt gifted an entire temple to the city of Madrid, so it was deconstructed and rebuilt on the highest point in this beautiful park. I had a weird feeling about it (not a fan of displacing ancient religious structures/objects/most things), but I have to say it was an incredible sight, especially at sunset.

Madrid is a great place that I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time in: definitely on my list to go back to though!

Sweet, Sweet Barthelona

Food, feats, fun… what more could you ask for? Maddy soaked in the sights and tastes of Barcelona, and she’s determined to go back. Check out why in her latest blog!

My experience of Barcelona is split up between two short and sweet weekends, one in the spring and one in the fall. I’m definitely going to come back to Barcelona to truly steep in the culture, but the time that I had with it was pretty meaningful. I packed a ridiculous amount of activities in for a total of 72 hours.

The overall feeling of the city is very young and vibrant. Everyone is either a chic, well-dressed woman, a punkish-looking skateboarder, one half of an adorable and small old couple, or a man with an incredible beard reading a philosophy book. Or a tourist, which comes with being anywhere, but especially Barcelona, being the capital of Catalonia. The boardwalk on the beach is always so full of life, with people walking their dogs and rollerblading and playing volleyball. Barcelona is also the skateboarding capital of the world, so you can always spot some young guys and girls doing tricks on any available surface. I’d highly recommend finding a famous skating spot and just watching some professionals take on feats of stairs and inclines that make me cringe just thinking about them.

If there’s anything I want to impress upon you about this particular city, it’s (surprise) to not just go see the Sagrada Familia, but to go IN the church itself. You will never see anything like it in your life, and the beauty of it is literally breathtaking. I gasped out loud. It’s a similar response to seeing the Grand Canyon or the Alps for the first time, except this is man-made which makes it all the more incredible of an experience. The church was designed primarily by Antoni Gaudi, the famous Catalonian architect that has done many crazy architectural feats across the city. They started construction in the 1870’s and it has yet to be finished, projected to be done in 2026 (as of now). The church is designed to mirror the unparalleled beauty of nature, and man does it do the trick: I don’t want to show too many photos because I want you, dear reader, to have my experience, but I’ll give you a little taste. (Photos don’t do it justice anyway.)

LOOK AT THAT. Look at how beautiful that light is. There are so many gothic, dark, and musty cathedrals all over Europe, whose stained glass are full of cluttered depictions from the Bible, but this church completely rejects these norms and uses light for the sole purpose of beauty in color and gradient. I absolutely love it and I will try my hardest to come back when it’s totally finished.

The other highlight that I will mention is food. I love Hispanic food of every kind, so I’m a little biased towards Spain in general, but I will say there are some places in Barcelona that totally blew my mind. There is one restaurant that isn’t necessarily Catalonian, but is too good: Brunch and Cake. Yes, it’s a bit “white girl overpays for Instagram-able plate,” but good God, is that plate incredible. If you want a dark green matcha pancake with strawberry compote while overlooking the harbor, I suggest you try out this restaurant. A great thing about Spain in general is that there’s a ton of immigrants from all the places they imperialized (a little disturbing, yes), so you can find every kind of Hispanic-infused meal in Barcelona/major cities. One of my travel buddies is Colombian so he took us to a few Colombian restaurants and I was schooled in the ways of the Colombian meal.

I ate so much I was on the verge of puking for a few hours in fact. If you like fun at all, go to Barcelona! Maybe not in fall 2017 because of the independence marches, but you should definitely go at some point.

Crêpe and Game Night!

The BDE did it again! Crêpes and board games were a hit, bringing the fall’s GTL students together unlike never before.

My favorite night of the year happened last week: crêpe making night!! Okay, it isn’t my favorite night of the whole entire year, but I love crêpes, and I love making crêpes, so it’s always a great time. The Bureau des Etudiants pulled out all the stops with assorted jams, hella Nutella, and even a jar of that Biscoff cookie spread (the only thing we look forward to on Delta flights – you know I’m right). We got the crêpe hot plates heated up, Ratatouille on the big screen, and a plethora of various board games that are usually stowed away in the BDE closet.

Giant Jenga was a big hit: I’m not sure whether to blame the design-oriented part of us GT students, or the need for a small no-stakes gamble. Regardless, it’s simply fun to watch this massive tower crash down and make everyone in the GTL lounge jump every 20 minutes. I haven’t played small baby (now) Jenga in a long time, but I’m nearly positive you couldn’t do the craziness that I saw with big Jenga. Or maybe that’s just GT engineers blowing my mind with their planning and balancing skills. To be honest I’m a little shocked that no one happened to get hit by the avalanche.

The crêpes were a bit of a mess at first: getting an even consistency is difficult the first time, and then flipping it just becomes a jumbled debacle not dissimilar to scrambled eggs. Soon enough everyone got the hang of it, and people not in BDE came over and just made crêpes for others out of personal enjoyment.

All in all, it was a very successful night, in which people from all realms of GTL – some that I see every day, some I’d never met before – could come together for games and food.

(Thanks, BDE!)

Paris: A Couple of My Favorite Things

Every GTL student visits Paris at least once – without fail. Maddy has been a few times now, and she has some tips on what not to miss.

Throughout GTL, I’ve technically been to Paris more times than I can count: I know the walk from Gare de l’Est to Gare du Nord by heart. As far as actually spending time in Paris, I’ve seen a good bit of it (I think), and far too much of it to cram into one blog post. Therefore, these are a few things that I’ve done recently that I think are essential Parisian activities (not just hitting all the big monuments).

One thing I love is tea. A good, warm cup of tea is absolutely heart-warming, especially when having to brace the harsh cold that usually hangs over Paris’s shoulder. When you look up tea houses on your phone, it will lead you to places like Angelina, which certainly are a nice couple of restaurants, but they’re very touristy and overpriced. I had a brioche bun with salmon that could’ve fed one cat fully. Last spring I found a little British-style teahouse near the Notre Dame with good tea and incredible strawberry jam, but I was more so looking for a real Parisian tea experience, which this place obviously didn’t fulfill.

This past weekend I finally found it: Mariage Frères. Yes, there is a chain of them around Paris, and yes they are in somewhat popular and touristy places, but man is it an experience. Up front is the whole store with rows and rows of massive barrels of tea, alongside tea sets ranging anywhere from 30-700 euros. There was a line in which you could smell whatever tea happened to be near you, and when you got to the front a nicely-shaven, dapper man greeted you and got you the tea you wanted with incredible speed and agility.

There was a menu, yes, but it was the size of a Bible, and we just went with asking him what his favorites were. We walked out with 200 grams of nice tea for a pretty affordable price (I think). In the back was the restaurant, which unfortunately we didn’t get to eat at, but I’m sure it’s incredible. Pricey, but this place is the real deal, so I’d put down for a brunch at Mariage Frères.

The Montmartre neighborhood is somewhere I’m getting to know pretty well since my friend just moved there, and it’s been slowly growing on me recently. Montmartre is the whole hill of the Sacre Coeur down to the Moulin Rouge, and while it’s certainly a hike to get up there, it’s by far the best view of the city that exists in Paris (not just my novice opinion by the way). The Sacre Coeur is nice; it looks like most fancy big cathedrals (although the outside is cooler than most), but the view from its front porch is absolutely incredible. You can see pretty much any tall monument or church in all of Paris at once.

The foot traffic in that particular area can be a nightmare, filled to the brim with tourists all trying to get themselves drawn by a Montmartre street artist, but if you go down west of the Basilica a ways there’s a really nice neighborhood with some incredible food and cute local Parisian shops. Go to a fruit stand and get white strawberries, or enjoy one of the endless incredible French pastries while sitting on the classic Montmartre staircases that line the Butte. It’s a lively area with a lot of green and a lot of verve. Check it out the next time you have a long layover in Paris.

Freiburg: Short & Sweet

Sometimes, things go wrong. That’s when you make the most of things – like when Maddy ended up in the charming town of Freiburg, Germany this weekend.

Long story short, I had a major miscommunication with a friend of mine that was coming to Paris to study at the Louvre, and I ended up in Paris with a bunch of nice clothing and literally no plan for the weekend. It was nearing Friday night, so I had to decide quickly what I was doing. That had never happened to me before: I was alone with a backpack of clothes in an incredibly central location, and I could go nearly anywhere. It honestly felt exhilarating and liberating, 10/10 would recommend (if you’re not the anxious type).

After spending an hour at the train station help desk figuring out how to get to Cinque Terre, I actually decided to play it safe and just go back to Metz and figure out what to do from there. I quickly convinced a friend to come with me to Freiburg, the closest, cutest German town I could find. It’s about 2.5-4 hours by train away from Metz, and I thought the fall colors would be in full swing for a nice Black Forest hike. Unfortunately, we somehow missed the train TWICE (this was not a good weekend for me), one because we were late and the other for literally no reason except that we didn’t check our watches. We finally got into Freiburg in the early evening, not giving us time to really do too much, but we made the most of it. The town butts up against a series of hills that are densely forested, mostly pine but a lot of little foliage as well.

We found a babbling brook and a whole host of little fens where a million rabbits lived. We came down at sunset and found our way to a tavern that served the meatiest, heftiest German meals I’ve ever seen. I had Schweinhaxen (pork knuckle), which sounds weird or even gross, but I promise it was incredible. I’m a small human and tried my hardest to finish the whole thing, but there was simply no way that could happen, as you may see in the picture.

My friend captured me with my hand over my heart, in a subconscious pledge of allegiance to the schweinhaxen. It was so good. We also had Black Forest cake, which is this thick cake with a ton of whipped cream and wine-soaked cherries on the bottom. Satisfied that we stuffed ourselves with pure Allemagne culture, we waddled back to the train station to hop over to our AirBnB in a neighboring suburb. If you have time, I’d definitely recommend taking a walk through the place where people actually live. It’s so interesting to see how just little things are similar or different from your own American neighborhood.

The next morning we headed into town for a last meal and walkabout before we trained home. Freiburg is one of the most eco-friendly places in Germany, so everyone is out on their bikes enjoying the cool fall weather. We weaved through a bunch of modern home decor shops and old woodworking stores, finally settling on a nice, strangely cheap fish restaurant for lunch near the old tower.

Fun fact: after WWII, Europe was so devastated that America had to step in and help rebuild, creating the Marshall Plan to stimulate the European economy. While doing so, America saw this as an opportunity to spread U.S. pop culture and business as widely as possible in an effort to unify a broken Europe wracked with inter-fighting and distrust. I love a lot of things about America, but the fact that you can’t take a picture of Checkpoint Charlie without also catching the KFC sign, and that McDonald’s chose to brandish its name on the defining cultural symbol of a small German town: this is absolutely ridiculous and asinine. American imperialism is alive and well.

Putting the America rant aside, Freiburg was a super cute town with a great atmosphere, I’d recommend it as a short weekend trip for sure.

BMW: Driving the Future

Guest bloggers Alex & Nicolette give some insight into HTS 2100’s recent site visit to BMW, during which they were the first ever tour group in the autonomous vehicle development department.

Written by guest bloggers Alex Rahban & Nicolette Slusser.
 
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“The Ultimate Driving Machine.” A motto held by one of the most well-known auto-manufacturers of the world, BMW – a company forged from aircraft engines and redefined through luxury automobiles. BMW’s history is filled with a rich racing past. Enthusiasts remain true to the brand for its buttery smooth inline 6’s and long throw manual transmissions, but today, the students of Georgia Tech Lorraine experienced a different side of BMW.

Far from the well-known four-cylinder building, we were given private access to BMW’s autonomous vehicle development location. Beyond the unpaved walkways, wet concrete, and yellow caution tape lay the secrets to BMW’s future in mastering level 4 autonomous driving.

Although BMW had previously trod lightly on the topic of self-driving cars, commenting that they wanted to be certain not to dilute their renowned automotive brand, they shared the structure behind how such a system would work. Students were made aware of the difficulties of developing the technology to make self-driving vehicles fully functional on the road. They require advanced software that must be able to process the frames of an image, classify the different objects in the Image, and determine how to interact with them safely. Just one hour of driving produced several terabytes of data which the vehicle had to process in order to function properly. The test vehicles at BMW required a full trunk of hardware to perform this task (weighing in at over 500lbs); however, they indicated when released, the hardware for their vehicles would only require as much space as a shoe box.

From the visit, it is clear that BMW is making a full effort to produce this technology, yet at this moment, they are several years from completion. We had the privilege of being the first group to ever tour the facility; unfortunately though, photographs were not permitted. Although BMW has chosen to be quite secretive with the public about their participation in autonomous vehicles, we can expect BMW to produce truly revolutionary vehicles exceeding both the highest automotive and technological standards.