Weekend in Etretat and Rouen

 

Market purchases

Yesterday the other language assistants and I went to the market with one of the English teachers, and it was amazing. Just as I'd imagined it: Butchers, flower vendors, fruit and vegetable vendors, and of course, cheese vendors all lined the streets. I saw sausages (boudin blanc) being made, and although it grossed me out, another type of sausage they had tasted delicious and I bought some!

 Lidia and I on a cliff!

Then one of the English teachers was kind enough to bring me and Lidia to Étretat, which was beautiful, although it never stopped raining, even for a brief moment. It made it very difficult to take photos, but I did my best! After climbing the seaside cliffs, we went for crepes and warm beverages to warm up. On the way home, we stopped by the teacher's house and she even has hens! I love the farm aspect of this town. Imagine having a fresh egg everyday!

This cliff has been described as an elephant dipping its trunk into the water

The other side!

2 seconds before I realized that rubber boots are only waterproof if the water doesn't come up and over the boot.

 

 

Today we met a Spanish teacher in Rouen, and he took us to the market to buy food for a meal at his house. We had salad (it should be noted that salad here is simply lettuce. It is difficult to understand the point of eating it if there are no veggies in it, but to each their own I suppose!) with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing, bread with pâté and riette (a local specialty), some scrambled eggs (with the Haute Normandie classic ingredient: fresh cream!), and then three types of cheese (brie, a cheese from Auvergne, and another French cheese since it is apparently sacrilegious to eat cheese from elsewhere!) with more bread. Then came our pastries that we bought at a local bakery and tea.

The Sunday market in Rouen

Cheese vendor (selling Neufchatel)

Just when I probably should have hired someone to roll me back down the streets (like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) to the train station, we went instead to a tourist stop with an incredible view of the city. There had to be at least a million stairs to get up there, but the view was worth it. I would love to see it at night.
 

Rouen

We also got to look inside the cathedral during a service (by accident), checked out the art school where the bodies of people who died from the plague were once dumped, got refused entry into the Gros Horloge tower because the lady closed her cash early (as she told us while handing tickets to the people standing at the counter), checked out the Old Marketplace again, the Palais de la justice, walked past the Musée des Beaux-Arts, and back to the train station.

The three of us returned to good old Yvetot, where only the pub, pizzeria, and convenience store are open Sunday afternoon onwards. Home sweet home :)