Sunday April 18, 2010 in Rouen, France

Sunday, April 18, 2010

We had a busy day walking our feet off! Hard to believe, but I think we walked even more today than in Dieppe. It was a warm, beautiful sunny day: perfect for any and all outdoor activites.

• went grocery shopping at our usual local places: the boulangerie for french bread and croissants, the middle eastern market (with kinda creepy music playing this Sun...) for fruit and veggies, rose water, hummus-in-a-can
• found the Sunday market near the Church of Saint Maclou (built in 1200; rebuilt 1437-1521; an example of "Flamboyant Gothic" architecture) where we bought beef for a stew, cheese (Como and locally produced Neufchâtel), and flowers
  Note: Rabbits, pigeons, beef, pork, and chicken are plentiful. Plucked chickens will often still have their feet-rough feet prove a chicken lived a free range life!
  
• stumbled on a secluded courtyard behind a gate (photo below): the Aitre St-Maclou is rare even in Europe these days. The serene courtyard was a mass Medieval grave for plague victums; the surrouding buildings with danse macabre carvings were the ossuary for the nearby Church of Saint Maclou
  Photo: Trees in courtyard are where the mass plague grave was located; the medieval buildings were the charnel houses, St. Maclou church is in the distance; detail of a danse macabre carving which line the buildings;
• cleaned the apt while David did the laundry (clean clothes--yea! 12 euro/approx $16 for laundry--bah!)
• ate a crepe from a streetside vendor; discovered chouquettes: cream-less cream puffs, sprinkled with large granulated sugar crystals...while not as pretty as the "Etoile de Mer" from Dieppe, at least I can buy them here in Rouen!
  
• heard how to correctly pronounce the obscene version of the word like "canard" from a crazy person near the McDonald's ("McDo") in Rouen....
• sat in cafe and people watched while baking in the sunshine
• strolled along the Seine and saw a car lifted onto a barge

Sunday has a different rhythm for than other days. Many stores are closed. Some, like the boulangerie, corner market, etc, are only open until noon. Something to keep in mind when looking for a bite to eat: the kitchens in many cafes are closed, though you can still get drinks.

A number of markets occur thoughout the week in Rouen. So far, these are the two that we have visited:

• Place St Marc: Large open air flea market (open Tues, Fri, Sat, Sun) near the Church of Saint Maclou--chickens sizzling on rotisseries, fresh fruits and veggies in colorful piles, seafood and fresh meats (chicken, duck, pork, beef, quail, pigeon...), dried sausages hanging in neat clumps, cheeses (Camembert, Como, Rollot, Neufchâtel, Vieux-Pané , Boursault, Brillat-Savarin, Livarot, Pays d'Auge ....), clothes, household items, furniture, and the best flower market in the area
• Vieux Marché : Smaller covered market (open daily except for Mondays) near the Church of Saint Joan of Arc--fresh meats, seafood, foi gras, pates, terrines, honeys, jellies, etc

Tempus fugit! The Great Clock

April, 2010 Rouen, France
Sitting in an outdoor cafe, sipping "un cafe" and people watching .

Wandering through Vieux Rouen (Old Rouen), a warren of tiny streets lined with hundreds of half-timbered medieval houses, you will find the Le Gros Horloge (the Big Clock). The symbol of Rouen, the clock is located on a beautiful stone archway crossing the rue du Gros-Horloge.

In 1409 a clock face was installed on the archway over a gate in the ancient Roman walls.

The current archway and clock faces (one on each side of the archway) were rebuilt between 1527-1529. On the two Renaissance clock faces:

• a single hand indicates the hour: time didn't need to be more exact!
  
• under the number VI, an image representing the day of the week (Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and Sun) appears on a chariot at noon
• above the clock face, a globe indicates the phase of the moon

Because it speaks to me...

"...Man has no harbor, time has no shore;
It flows, and we pass! ..."

from the poem Le Lac by French poet Lamartine:
...L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive ;
Il coule, et nous passons !...

"But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail."

from the poem Georgics written by Roman poet Virgil:
Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive." Joseph Campbell

Thwarted by a Flea

April 10, 2010, Rouen
On Saturday morning, we rather spontaneously decided to take the train out to Dieppe for the day. It is only a 45 minute train ride from Rouen, via the French SNCF train network. So, basic plan in hand, we hopped the Metro into Rouen to the train station.

The Gare de Rue Verte (or train station) in Rouen is built in the art nouveau style and is quite convenient; there is a metro stop right at the train station.

Upstairs, there are a whole series of ticket machines making it very convenient to buy your tickets without ever having to talk to an actual human. At this point, dear reader, you might be wondering where the whole "Thwarted by a Flea" title comes in. Patience... in fact, we're there now.

In most of Europe, bank debit cards are different from those in the US. In addition to having the magnetic stripe, the bank cards here (generally referred to as Carte Bleue) also have a small chip in them. In French, the chip is referred to as une puce, or a flea.

So, I walk to to the ticket machine, punch up a couple of tickets for the 10:15 train to Dieppe (it being 10:05 at this point), put in my card, and have the machine tell me "no no no, you don't have the right card". Well, actually I do have a French bankcard with une puce, I just haven't gotten my bank in the US to put money into my account in France. So while I have the right card, I CAN'T BUY THE DAMNED TICKET with it! Given now that it is 10:10, and there are 15 people in line for the ticket window, we waved off on the trip for this weekend.

On a very up note, we did have a fantastic dinner at at La Toque d'Or (which translates as the Gold Cap).

We each had a delicious meal, right by the fireplace below.

• foie gras with a fig and preserved fruit compote, served with brioche toast
• tagliatelle and wild boar in a sauce with a wine poached pear,
  
• cheese course (a creamy goat cheese, and an unexpectedly salty, rich Neufchâtel),
  
• all topped off with a warm apple tart with vanilla ice cream
  

Yum!

Rouen: Je ne suis pas l'Homme de la Batte

I've been practicing my mouth calisthenics aka "speaking French". While the odd bit of rusty Spanish still ambushes my fledgling French pronunciation, I'm definately improving. That is, until...Rouen. You see, before Rouen or "wahh(n)", I was blissfully unaware of the hazards of the letter R in French. Naturellement, c'est francais!

Unlike either the English or Spanish versions, the tricky "r" beast requires learning throat yoga. It entails finding my "K" spot and a mantra to the Egyptian sun god ("ra-ra-ra"). Other suggestions for conquering "r" include gently rolling the "r" as it's hacked out like a loogie, growling like a tiger, or just randomly making it sound like a "w". Hence, "wahh(n)" with the n highly nasalized. Sounds good to me! But I'll keep paper and pens handy to write words out just in case.

Speaking of words, I couldn't resist the "r" section in Dave Barry's "Parlez-vous Français?" piece. I found it while trying to figure out how to say "Rouen". Needless to say, it didn't help. But thinking about it will certainly make my language mantras sound extra amused!

"...Sometimes we Americans try to blend in to the café scene, but the French immediately spot us as impostors, because we cannot pronounce the Secret French Code letter, which is ``r.'' They have learned to say ``r'' in a certain secret way that sounds as though they are trying to dislodge a live eel from their esophagus. It is virtually impossible for a non-French person to make this sound; this is how the Parisian café waiters figure out that you are an American, even if you are attempting to pass as French:

WAITER: Bonjour. Je suspect que vous etes American. (``Good day. I suspect that you are American.'')

YOU: Mais je ne portes pas les Nikes! (``But I am not wearing the sneakers!)

WAITER: Au quais, monsieur pantalons intelligents, prononcez le mot ``Rouen.'' (``OK, Mr. Smarty Pants, pronounce the word `Rouen.' '')

YOU: Woon. (``Woon.'')

WAITER: Si vous etes Francais, je suis l'Homme de la Batte. (``If you are French, I am Batman.'')"