After not having internet properly since the 29th, and on top of that barely any time to write about what I'm doing (which I could have done in a text file), it might be hard to catch up on the past 8 days but I'll do my best. Especially considering I can spend over 2 hours writing about just 3 days. At the moment I'm heading down from Paris Gare de Lyon to Valence by TGV, already after only 40 minutes it's looking more deep into the country and even drier and more mediterranean looking, with lots of little weaving roads and hills and golden fields. This train is so fast that actually I'm not too far off halfway. After an hour or so now it's begun to rain and is looking lush and green again, France is really a beautiful changing place. The family sitting around me, a grandpa and two granddaughters, are very nice, the younger of them is even sleeping on my arm! Surprising considering how bad I must smell.
Leaving Wills' in Clapham wasn't too bad, with a short walk to the Northern Line then another short walk around Kings Cross St. Pancras, but thinking about my trek to the Gare de Lyon makes me think real fatigue is cumulative... after 8 days of carrying nearly 30kg I am not sore nor feeling physically weak, but I am definitely not as spritely as last Wednesday; I can't walk as fast with the baggage and I start sweating a lot quicker.
My baggage got picked up in the security for the army knife I had in my red bag for camping gear. As the security guard was going through the bag, he first found my old army gloves (which I kept when I discharge, as a deposit on the recruits course photo which I paid for but never received from the crooks at the HAC) and he recognised them as army gloves which surprised me, and then again he recognised my knife as a British army one too, which was when he told me he had been in the army himself for 15 years. I had already guessed by his looks that he had been a Ghurka, and I saw on his nametag that his name was Rai, like Milan who we met in Nepal when we were trekking. We were talking about the UK and Nepal, the differences, about how all the army gear is best (except for the boots of course - the British army are only really around to occupy countries rather than fight out in the open country). We spoke about his 3 children, how he had one 17 just finishing school one 13 and one 11, all girls... we had a really nice chat, we shook hands and he sent me as if I didn't ever have a dangerous knife in my bag.
The train through the tunnel took me to Gare du Nord, where I took the Magenta line to get to St. Lazare to take the train to Rouen, which by now is normal to me, as it's how I get to Rouen from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Liselott was there waiting to greet me with a bike she'd borrowed from Virginie, we loaded all the bags onto the bike and walked all the way through Rouen, to the little canal which is between my old place and her family's place, just talking. It was so nice and warm and light until 11pm, around which time we'd finally got home, dropped things off, searched the deserted streets for kebab, and finally rested. The quietness of Rouen and the warmth, and the walk along the canal covered in green as opposed to wet and grey and rainy as it was, made me feel like it was really summer here. Summer in London and London in general is special, but this was really where the summer began for me!
The next day I spent out on the bike alone, riding around Rouen, having a look around, while Liselott had her last painting class. I first went to Robin and Elise's bookshop 'Les Mondes Magiques' to see how it had transformed since the winter. Elise was there, it was no longer empty or cold, or dirty with kebab stained walls, it was so beautiful that I couldn't express it, I was too exhausted though I don't think even in English I could have, it was amazing. I drank some coffee she made me, asked about Robin and found out he was out shopping for shoes - maybe now with the shop he'd become a real 'homme 'd'affaires', he had just bought a really nice new pair before I'd left!
Then Liselott and I went along to say hello to Virginie and Mika, and to do some drawing. It was really nice to see them, there was one or two old faces there at their school but mostly new, but their place had the same nice ambience. I can't be sure, can't remember exactly, but we probably ate there - I swear they are like a second family! Afterwards we headed back along the canal and getting back to the house, headed up to lie down but said hello to Max her family's father before, I saw Robin at a concert at a gallery which was so small that it was only the band inside, with the audience spilling out onto the street and on the road. Afterwards I was so exhausted and just wanted to lie down until the night and drift to sleep but Liselott convinced me to come along to see some of her friends, her last chance to, at the 'Terrasses de Jeudi', a series of free concerts every Thursday down on Rive Gauche, the south quay of the river. It was nice as we both had bikes, just like last time in Rouen, but this time it was nice weather. The music was very very so so (France makes very good electronic music but also very bad electronic music), but it was nice to be out and about, and I actually saw Pierre Dirringer, my host brother from my first time in Rouen. It was nice to see him, I told him I'd try to catch up with old Pere Alain if I had time.
After the concert we both rode back, I really really wanted to eat a kebab near my old place, la croix de pierre, the 'quartier arab', which I like to call 'croix de kebab' but just before it and before even leaving the city heading back to Liselott the chain on my bike broke at Place St. Marc. We met two French guys, who must have been drunk, I appreciated one's attempt at english when he said the chain was 'cassed'. It was a long long walk home, even heavier and more difficult after the burger I ate at croix de kebab.
The following Friday morning I tried for the second time to get into the odd little shop on Rue St. Nicholas which seems only to sell second hand porcelain cats, owned by two generations of plump ladies, one probably 40 the other 70. Whenever I'd look in there for cats for my Nanny Meriel, the younger would always speak to me as if I were a stupid tourist who had come all this way to buy a cat from them, and that's what they were used to... honestly a really odd place. The first time it had been shut but I managed to spot a special section at the back for every other animal in Porcelain, and spotted some pink pigs for Roger. This time, I saw the younger one waddling off down the street and the shop locked up, around 11am. That was when I realised I was in France again, people shutting shops when they feel like it... I love France!
I had some time to myself, and after trying to donate some old books of Liselott's to Les Mondes Magiques, and Elise telling me they weren't so good but thanking for the thought, I thought I'd go find Liselott where she was helping Sondre move into his new place at croix de kebab, on almost the same street as me 100m down. He took the old books in the end, and in helping him carry the heaviest of his furniture and things up to the flat on the top floor, secured myself a place to stay after Liselott left on the Sunday! It was a nice bright place, something about being so high up so as not to be able to see other houses around (if you were reclining on the sofa) and all the white walls and white tiled floors (as well as Sondre's sailing shoes) gave me the feeling of being near the seaside.
After a little time searching for swimmers for a swim that afternoon with Virginie and Liselott, Daniel the Polish chef from the Restaurant called me to go meet up and chat for a while. One of the new waiters, Benoit, came along too and we drank a nice beer or two in a really nice square just off of Rue de la Republique, forgot the name of the squae. We spoke about what had been happening with Daniel, I tried as usual to convince him to move to Australia and it may be working slowly! He told me how the Polish love affair with Karolina had kind of come to an end, despite having organised a trip with her and other friends this September. He had met a new French girl, who came a little while later with 3 of her friends, before Benoit had left as he didn't really like her. She was a typical giggly French girl, seemed like a lot of fun but probably an equal amount of work too!
In the end for our swim I just borrowed Mika's shorts for it and Virginie Liselott and I walked along to L'ile La-croix to the pool there, it was baking hot but with a cool breeze and the swim was nice, we must have stayed there until 8pm after it closed. Even though Saturday night was planned to dinner at their place, when we got back Mika and Virginie insisted we stay for dinner, which of course ended around midnight.
As usual, we slept in but it just didn't seem enough to recover from all the travel, and I spent the day running around looking for ingredients to make Tung Po, chinese pork for dinner that night with Mika and Virginie, but as well I finally managed to get the other pigs at the little shop. The old one was sitting in the corner and seemed as usual a bit warmer and smarter than her daughter, who was trying to sell me every pig she had. When the 3 I wanted, 3 pigs' faces all in one piece smiling at you, didn't end up having a price tag, she picked up an exercise book from the table. By the time she'd spent some time flicking through it, humming, then ending up on a page with a few things scrawled in messy handwriting, then finally somehow pulling 9 euros out of the air, I was so entertained rather than patronising, and felt the dull little round lady had earned the outrageous price.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cooking the pork and teaching Virginie a few little things on her new electric guitar, while Liselott was trying her best to finish the drawing she was doing for her family, with all of them as superheroes, for the day after when she was leaving. I'm not sure I was doing Mika a favour when I taught Virginie one chord, which she was playing over and over at the same rhythm, though as usual Mika makes fun of everything, and it was actually him who made the most jokes about it! After we ate, Mika gave me his old army knife, with a spoon fork and can opener all in one. It meant even more after he explained he was in the army for 5 years, and spent 3 in Bosnia, and that it was his sergeant who had given it to him. That he was even in the army was such a surprise, but that he gave me such an important object was even more. He said it held a lot of memories, not necessarily good ones, and that it was time for it to make new ones with my trip. Liselott spent quite a while finishing her family's drawing, and even longer once we got back packing all her things up for her return home the next day, a very very late night.
On Sunday I slept all the way in the car to the airport, while Liselott was playing with the Ferdinand and Violette. It was a nice kind of goodbye for everyone, there were lots of hugs. I bought her a last pain au chocolat for the trip, and afterwards all the family headed to McDonalds for lunch. It was fun to spend a last little time with the two youngest, they are lots of fun, unfortunately I was so tired from the past few days that I slept most of the way back, and again at Sondre's after they dropped me there. I woke up and Sondre and I had a kebab, then I headed back to the family's house to get Virginie's bike that Liselott had left there. It was around 9pm and they were just sitting down for dinner with a few friends, so I joined them though I wasn't so hungry. Ferdinand wasn't around but I got to say one last goodbye to Violette, and after eating and chatting a bit, I headed along the canal one last time on the bike, the sky was red and it was really lovely.
Later that night, as he doesn't work on Mondays, I went down to the Highlands Cafe on the river with Daniel and 2 other waiters from the restaurant, Bryce and Benoit. It's the British themed bar of Rouen, a bit dark inside but nice, Daniel and I had played darts there a few times the last time. We just hung around there for a while, playing doubles of pool for a while then just hanging around and drinking after closing. I made good friends with Benoit, he was a bit more open than other people I'd met in Rouen, his father came from Chile and he had just spent 1 year living, saying it was hard to come back to France (or maybe Rouen) afterwards, I suppose he seemed a little more adventurous.
After it was finally getting quite late, Daniel bought us 2 more beers and we went to the gardens around St. Ouen, where we'd been a few times before after the bar closed drinking and hanging around til 3-4 am, something which he misses after leaving England. This time it was just the same, except we were listening to his iPod singing at the top of our lungs, very fun. I finally got back to Sondre's a little before 5 am, still with the bottle of red wine I'd been carrying around to bring him, which he opened and drank half of while I slowly sunk into the couch and slept.
The Monday didn't really happen, with nothing beginning until maybe 4pm. Mika and Virginie helped me with the insurance for the bike, I really don't know what I would have done without them, in so many ways! They are like parents, but they are so youthful and fun that it seems like it's just given rather than obligated that they take care of me (and Liselott) so much, just because they can help us. Like Laetitia said, it feels like she has a brother 
That night AGAIN I ate at their place, with Sondre, and I think Alizée the youngest daughter was there too, she hadn't been there earlier. After spending some time afterwards looking at where Sondre and I lived on google maps, we headed back to Sondre's.
Sondre and all the other Norwegians in Rouen are the lucky ones. Sondre just started last year, and signed up to go do the Bac in France for 3 years. He gets all sorts of funding both from Norway and France to live there, and at 16 he just took his own little flat in the city, where I stayed a few nights. He speaks fluent French and of course fluent English, at dinner they thought he was French. I think I would have loved to do something like that at that age, thinking back to my last few years at school and how I wished I could be anywhere else. I remember how dull and uninspiring it all was, how thick and stupid the teachers were to pressure us the way they did, as if we were children or farm animals. I saw this again when I went into my French exam, when one of the supervisors spoke rudely to me, asking me to switch off and put away the mobile phone I had in my had (to do just that). It was pretty clear that was what I was doing, lucky I could rise above so I just smirked at her. Most teachers are only good for telling children what to do rather than teach them anything. That is for most, except perhaps for Mrs. Saddler who was my music teacher and the only one who really cared and interested us. I would like to be a teacher, it's a shame they make no money and again a shame that I live in the world where that's what's important.
I also think about all those others I went to school with and how little I now care about them and the little contact I have with (almost all) of them. To me now, not only am I a lot different to all of them, but I think of them like we were in the same prison and would all prefer not to see each other again. Grace that none of them will actually read this. Anyhow good luck to Sondre, and I hope he enjoys his time and the responsibility that we all deserved at that age. I feel sorry for 99% of the rest of us who get obligations beat into them rather than learn anything long lasting like new experiences.
My last day in Rouen, the Tuesday. I tried to finish the drawing I'd started on my first day but not only was it clear that there wasn't the time, I was also very restless about all the trip. All the moving around, and seeing people, had really run me down on top of that. My diet probably didn't help either, after attempting to draw in the morning, I headed back to Sondre's and suggested we eat kebab, which he thought was a good idea despite having just woken up. So we ate kebab, ugh. A little later in the day, we went to the bar called the Son du Cor, Liselott and my favourite bar. We sat and drank maybe 3 Orangina each, to make up somehow for all the kebab we'd been eating, and Sondre gave me little Norwegian lessons on any scrap piece of paper we could find. It's a shame I didn't make the most of staying with him more, and had him teach me more! I was there until the evening, when I was to go to Robin and Elise's shop before it shut to go to the countryside and spend the evening at Robin's parents' house.
We were planning on eating out in the garden during the evening in the warm sun, it hadn't rained in the area for 2-3 weeks people had told me. Well as we were leaving town, the rain finally came..! On the way we were stopping off at a huge old house, where 3 dancers lived together who had their own company, and where some old books were for Robin and Elise's bookshop. There was one in particular a picture book which was so beautiful, if I'd had space in my luggage I would have offered to pay for it even, it was amazing. In the end we found a nice old 'vest pocket' French - English dictionary from 1951 which were my spoils.
It was still raining by the time we got to the house, which was part of an old little vineyard, the garden was beautiful despite the rain and Robin showed me his father's studio at the back of the garden, where he does his painting. For dinner, we had some savoury crepes, played pick-up sticks and cards, drinking cider. It was so quiet and peaceful, it was really nice but we were all tired and after a little dessert rested for the night.
The next day, Robin and Elise took all my baggage to the shop, which was quite close to the station, and I did a few last things. I went and had a few coffees at Jean-Claude's place, just below the Joan of Arc's tower, where I first used to go in Rouen. It was nice to see them and his partner too (Virginie?), I told them about the bike trip, they really liked to hear about it! After having one last lunch with Mika, saying goodbye to him and Virginie later once she was back from Paris for the day, and after receiving a gift from Elise in the shop (Robin was buying shoes AGAIN!) , 'le tour du monde de Nino', a childrens novel with pictures. After finally saying goodbye to them too, I finally took my 16h57 train to Paris.
This all happened too long ago for me to remember and to write how I was feeling, at the time. Which is a shame, but above all I'm writing this for myself, so at least I will always remember how I felt and my time spent just be rereading. I'm going to try to write more often though, so I capture it better.
