Setting a session variable in django tests

This works

def test_access_to_home_with_location(self):    self.client.login(username=self.user.get_username(), password='pass')    session = self.client.session    session['location'] = [42]    session.save()    response = self.client.get(reverse('home'))

But this

def test_access_to_home_with_location(self):    session = self.client.session    session['location'] = [42]    session.save()    response = self.client.get(reverse('home'))

breaks with

====================================================================== ERROR: test_access_to_home_with_location (posts.tests.HomeViewTestCase)       ----------------------------------------------------------------------      Traceback (most recent call last):                                              File "tests.py", line 32, in test_access_to_home_with_location                                session.save()                                                              AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'save'

So it seems with out calling self.client.login()self.client.session is just an empty dictionary. Is there a way to initialize it as a session object?