Integration Weekend

After 5 parties in 8 days (and all the integration possible), my class headed out to Normandy on saturday (13th) morning for a weekend of "integration".

Agenda : Outdoor activities, picnic, party, Mont St.Michel, food etc...

We were about 120 of us, had 2 buses and 2 cars and drove for about 4 hours from Paris to get to Caen by around noon. Had a nice lunch in Mercure hotel before heading out for some "Accrobranche", which is basically a mixture of climbing trees, zip lining and the assorted monkey tricks one can think of on a tree... it was a good reminder of how unfit a bunch of late-20 year old's can be, and we came away mostly vowing to do more sport and stay fit (yeah right, i see that happening, no time to eat lunch at noon out here !)

What followed was nice picnic, over some wine and snacks, mostly discussing history, politics and culture among our new found friends. This part was really amazing, simply because of the sheer diversity of my class at HEC !

We drove back to Saint-Lo, chilled for a while, ate dinner and then off we went to party at a nightclub that had been reserved for us ! The party went on until really late (or early next morning), and people got back to the hotel at 4 a.m. on sunday morning !

8 a.m. generated some of the most comic scenes outside the Mercure hotel at Saint-Lo. People with hangovers, some tired, others sleeping on the steps, some with bad stomachs and others just unable to speak ! And off we went to visit St.Malo, which is a historic fortified town in Normandy... When we got to beach, there were some random jokes being made about how we all looked like terminally ill patients who were brought to the beach to fulfil their last wishes. I dont think some of my friends appreciated that...

But the beach had a good breeze, and that did us some good. People felt a lot better while we were getting onto the bus to head to Mont St.Michel. We had a huge lunch before heading to the real abbey, and once there, we were met by a dignified lady who was to be our guide. Honestly, i have never seen a guide speak so passionately as she did, and she even made tons of jokes in between and kept us interested throughout our visit of the magnificent and historic monastery.

Everyone slept on the way back to Paris, especially since we caught the sunday evening traffic. We made it back to campus by midnight, and crashed !

This morning we had a seminar at 8:30, and people were still walking in at 9:15....