16th

Internet café. After departing the internet café> I’m sorry to say I made my first big mistake of the trip. I left the internet café in the hopes up meeting with Grace and Liz I’d been walking for about five minute, reached into my bag for my Rouen phone and could not find it. I assumed I must have left it at Grace’s house or in the bag with my lap top, which I’d handed to her earlier. So I decided to go home, use my other phone to contact them. They were in the peak of their shopping trip and told me they’d be home in about an hour. Back at Grace’s house I searched in a panic for my phone when Liz’s phone started ringing. On the phone it said Mary. I answered it and spoke quite awkwardly to French Man who had my phone. I’d left it at the internet Café. Disgraceful I know. So he agreed to keep the café open for an extra few minutes and Liz and I ran down the road to get it. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. I alays seem to lose my phone and it always seem to get returned to me. I’m very lucky and need to learn a lesson.

That evening Liz and I went over to Graces for a meal. We had left over rice meal and salad. We sat watching rubbish on TV. Watching awful American reality teenage drivel programmes on MTV with ridiculously cringe worthy characters, has become a little ritual of our. It’s dubbed over in French so we’re hoping that it’s helping us with our French. But mostly we enjoy slagging them off. After watching four programmes back to back we decided that we were going a bit insane and needed to get out the house. So we went out to an Irish pub. People go out ridiculously late here we’ve discoved, even if it’s just to the pub. So we went out at about 11 decided to not drink to recover from the night before but when we arrived saying ‘deux vasse du vins blanc’ seemed like an easy thing to order. So we had 1 glass of wine. In the pub a French man had over heard Grace speaking, noticed we’re English and asked if she would speak to an English woman who had come up to him looking for any one English. I suppose she was homesick for jolly old l’anglais. As it happens her and her husband were from Essex so liz said she was from Canvey Island. There wasn’t really much to say after that.

A little while later two men (late 40’s-50) also overheard us speaking. We must have loud voices. Anyway their English was very bad and they wanted to know if we would help them with their English and in return they’d help us with our French. It took a long time for us understand each other. We told them that we are students at the art school on an exchange and they seemed to think that we wanted to teach them art. But yeah we’ve arranged to meet up every week, same time same place to help each other with our languages. All in all it was an enjoyable night. We met lots of friendly people and I’m glad we left the house and mtv behind for the night.

17th
The previous night we’d decided to go to see the Simpson’s movie at 12.30 the next day as this was the only time it was showing. We keep kept to our promise, picked up Grace and headed to the cinema. Of all things to watch in another language The Simpsons is pretty easy to follow. It was Sunday and no shops are open on Sunday or Monday in Rouen so we decided to head back to ours. It felt too cold to just casually walk without an aim. On the way back we noticed that the Cathedral was open for vistors so we stopped in for a visit. The stained glass windows are absolutely beautiful. A Japanese tourist started taking photos of us so we decided to leave.

Back at Graces we had some late lunch and looked through simon’s film collection and decided to watch Kill Bill, in French of course. Liz had arranged to meet Orida back at Cecile’s house so after the extreme blood and death in Kill Bill we went back to mine and awaited her arrival. She was supposed to come between 7-9 so the three of us sat there, playing the guitar and singing. It got to 10 o clock and we thought ‘where is she?’. She told Liz she was having problems with her bag and could she meet her the next day. Liz wanted to get the transition of houses ever and done with so it was quite annoying. Oh well.

This is where i live

18th
Today I met Cecile finally! She’s lovely. She’s really friendly and I’m sure she’ll settle in fine in Norwich. I was extremely impressed with how fast she’d managed to back her bag for 3 months. It took her all of ½ hour when it took me about a day. I handed over my keys and all the information I could think to give her ie- taxis numbers and maps. Tonight we’re planning on trying out a pub Cecile recommended. Grace is also going to try and get a job there. Liz is going to Oridas tonight so I’ll be on my own. It’s a sad day. No I’ll be fine but I will miss her.