Ice skating and other things

19th

I’ve decided Tuesday is definitely my favourite day of the week in Rouen. It’s incredibly quiet on Sunday and Monday, too quiet so it’s lovely when the shops are open and there’s lots of people around again. Grace, Liz and I did a lot of shopping on this day. Too much. First of all Grace went to the laundrette where a man started talking to her and I don’t know why but she thought he was reaching in for a gun, which was in fact his wallet. Mean while Liz and I found a lovely boutique where I bought 3 tops. Following on from a chat Grace had had with her mum, Grace, Liz and I decided that we were too scuffy to fit in here and that in actual fact we were being rude by not taking on their culture. This is how we justified our shopping trip. It didn’t stop there however. I realised that my coat too was not very French looking and that had to be rectified immediately so I bought a beautiful long trench coat which would be a lot more money at home. When we thought ‘ok we look smart enough now’, we decided to go out that evening.

We decided to go to the bar Cecile had recommended a few days earlier called boite de bierre. It took us along time to find it as we had gotten confused and thought it was near the art school. We asked in a kebab shop, and a lovely man signalled straight onwards with his arms. After walking for about 10 minutes we decided to ask someone in a hotel. We found it eventually and I’m glad we did. It was a very quaint arty pub full with decorations, malabu bottles for lights and and suit hanging on the wall. I said to others that it reminded me of a caravan because or it’s narrowness but they didn’t agree. I learnt a few things that night. One is that apparently in France, other than a drink with your meal, only alcoholics drink wine after 5 o clock. This was after I’d drunk two glasses and it was about 10-11. Oh well maybe I’ll have a beer next time. I learnt this off a French man who’d over heard us speaking and wanted to practise his English on us. We keep getting this when we need to speak French! He had spent a year on Ireland and was very pleased that I new the expression ‘what’s the craic?’. He also asked what ‘How’s she hanging’ means? We told him it’s ‘how’s IT hanging?’. Anyway we spoke to him and his friend for about half an hour when some more people gathered around the table when they realised we were English. The first men started being very pathetic and swearing and making gestures at them in a ‘we were hear first you can’t talk to them’ kind of way. Very immature and childish. It was all very surreal. All these men fighting over us! Despite this we all went on to an exclusive club which they could not have got into without us. Grace arranged with one of them that we should all go and see the simpsons film with them the next the day. I don’t know why as we’d already seen it a few days before and I think she’d seen it before that aswell.


20th
After waking up pretty late I decided to go for a walk where you make yourself get lost. I ended up going around in a circle and returning home without meaning too. Grace and I went over to Liz’s house where Orida has left her with a frog and two fish to feed. Liz has said in the past that she’s scared of frogs so she’s not too pleased that they are her flatmates. We ended up playing the guitar and singing. I taught them a song called Wagon wheel so Liz played the guitar and Grace and I sung in harmony. We planning on busking one of these days.


We decided not to go to the Simpsons that evening but to go to the Irish pub again. Only one of the two men could come in the end as the other was stuck in Paris. These were the less immature second group from the night before. Pierre and Christoph. Well this was a rather awkward night. A lot of the conversations went like this ‘what did you have for lunch?’ ‘what did you have for breakfast’ ‘Can you do this’ and someone would roll tong. Fascinating stuff.

In this conversation someone had asked him if he liked sports to which he replied no but he didn’t mind ice skating. From this we found out there’s and ice rink in Rouen. We decided to go the next day. Grace got very excited about this.


21th
I do not like ice-skating! Christoph met us in the square and drove us to the ice rink. It’s in leisure centre with a swimming pool also, which we’re planning to go back to. As for the skating, it’s a lot scarier than I remember. For some reason falling over felt as scary as the idea of hanging off a cliff and falling 100’s feet downwards. The problem was probably I didn’t get it out of the way and fall. I just wobbled a lot! I felt strangely old when I said to Liz ‘how can those children look so fearless’ as 7 year olds skidded past me. Christoph on the other hand could not get enough as he whizzed around with a big smile on his face. He seemed to find the inner child in him and said he felt like he was 15 again. So that was nice. Grace says she wants to go back every week. Liz and I never want to go again.

After that we went to the little café upstairs for some hot chocolate where we watched a man being chucked out for smoking. He didn’t seem to listen as he then he ran off on to the ice rink with his cigarette. Just one of those things you can’t help but stare at. Anyway even though the conversation was still quite rigid and we find him a bit insulting when he makes jokes (I don’t know if it’s a language thing) he kindly invited to us to his house that evening for a meal.

A bit begrudgingly, because of the awkwardness of his humour, we went over to his house. I’m really glad we. He’s been very kind in taking us under his wing so to speak. He invited a friend of his, also called Christoph around too. He was much easier to talk to and had a sense of humour more similar to our own. He also pulled some interesting expressions which were very funny.

Christophs apartment was the smallest apartment I’ve ever seen. It was literally a bedroom with a little kitchen area to the side and when the bed was pulled back was a living room. We all huddled in and watched him cook an aubergine, pepper dish for us. We offered to help but he didn’t want any. After the meal we all went to le boite a bierre again. Love that place.