Finishing up Rouen

Alright. I'm going to finish writing about Rouen, but more out of respect for this "blog" project than out of a desire to actually write about Rouen. Also, I have no photos of the rest of our time in Rouen, so this will be concise.
(Really, I want to finish writing about Rouen so that I can post photos from Lille... Marta and I went there this past weekend, 11-13 Nov. It was beautiful and I managed to take SO MANY photos!)

Saturday morning we woke up and "fait de la grosse matinée", or just kinda lazed about for most of the morning. On the train from Caen to Rouen I taught Lucy how to play cribbage (WIN!), so we played a couple of games with Valentin, Ludo's son. I absolutely adore French children, and I think my main project in life may become figuring out how to raise children here...
Then we wandered into town and found a creperie, had lunch, and kept meandering. We stopped and got coffee at a really cute coffee shop that smelled like Portland; I wrote some in my journal, collected myself, and organized my thoughts. Lots of random wandering on Saturday.
Around 17h we made our way back to Ludo's, said our good-bye's, and once again followed my shoddy directions, this time ending up at Hélène's apartment. OH MY GOODNESS IF SHE WASN'T JUST ADORABLE AND FRENCH AS EVER! She gave us some time to get settled in, offered us coffee, and invited us to a bbq at her boyfriends parents house that was happening that evening. It was a bit outside of town, so we took the bus out and planned to stay the night there.
Hélène, like Ludo, introduced us to a number of her friends. We spent the whole evening chatting, eating, drinking, and getting to know some of the local folks. It was really comforting to me to see that French 20-somethings do just about the same things that my friends and I do as American 20-somethings. Around midnight, somehow a dance party erupted. I think it was mostly songs that were popular when all of these French folks were in middle school. After an hour or so of dancing and laughing and just feeling welcomed by everyone in the room, someone decided it was dessert time. Pears and chocolate.
After dessert we cleaned up, then most folks found their bus passes and headed back into Rouen for the night.
On Sunday we woke at 11h30, thanks to the time change (woohhooo! day light savings time!), drank coffee, then headed into town to go to the market. We got cheese and bread and some sausage made with blue cheese. (It was made with bleu d'Auvergne, which I have offocially decided that I do not like, as far as blue cheeses are concerned...)
We meet up with Ludo and a number of other CSers for a picnic on the terras of a cafe on this beautiful little street called "Rue Eau de Robec." Around 13h or 14h we went back to Hélène's. There were a couple of other people there, and we just chatted about nothing and everything. Then around 17h we went for a walk around downtown, which is an incredibly French Sunday afternoon activity. When we got back to Hélène's we made dinner and an apple tart, then went to see Le Couleur des Sentiments, or The Help, which I quite enjoyed. I seem to be going to the cinema very often here. Alas. An appreciation for cinema and the arts, like Sunday afternoon walks, is very French, it would seem.
The next morning Lucy had to leave early to catch her train back to Domfront. We said our goodbyes and promised to visit one another in our respective tiny towns, a promise which I plan to respect to the fullest extent. Hélène and I had breakfast around 10h, and I left around 11h to catch my 11h30ish train.

And, that's about the size of it.

Next time: Caroline and Marta conquer Lille!