France has this really good idea called covoiturage which in English means carpool. In brief there is a website where you post what kind of car you have and where you are going and people take a ride with you and pay for the trip. All in all it is pretty cool. I have used it a lot when travelling around France. Since the trip is something like 3 hours Julien decided to put his car on covoiturage and pick up some randos to come along with us. Usually if you are doing a covioturage then you are willing to have conversation while in the car, if not you should just take the train. The first guy we picked up did not understand this point. Julien tried to start a coversation with him but it really didn't work. An hour into the journey we picked up another guy who tried with as much success as us to start a conversation with this douchebag. We ended up dropping the first guy off and started talking about how lame he was without realizing that the window was open and he was standing next to the car. Needless to say he didn't end up paying us very much money. After that it was smooth sailing with conversation, the one I have always since people think apparently that Americans are like aliens so they have a lot of dumb questions to ask me.
We arrived in the town which is so small it isn't even really on the map and Julien proceeded to give me a driving tour of the town which lasted about 30 seconds. He was like "this is the center of town"I was like where, and he replied back there you missed it. I am so not a podunk country girl. The town his parents live in isn't on the coast and is called Yvetot and is actually surprisingly on the map. They live in this cute country cottage. His parents are cute and they made a traditional dinner for me (I was worried it was going to be tripes, but thankfully it was not. Julien had a laugh on my behalf once again) and they of course are French so we drank a lot of wine. I was the first American that his family has ever met so of course the usual questions were asked, do I eat mcdonalds, do I have an SUV etc etc. Every time I answered his mom would repeat what I said in my accent and giggle to herself, she thinks it is cute when I talk haha.
Then halfway through dinner I did my wonderful sneeze which cause dinner to come to a hault as everyone except Julien who started laughing and shouting that it was SIX sneezes, just gawked at me! From then on it became a family game to count my sneezes and to bet on how many sneezes I would do next time. Exhausted from the adventure we went to sleep when dinner was over around 2 in the morning. I fell fast asleep only to be woken up with a start by an obnoxious rooster at 6 am. The dumb rooster did not seem to understand that it was not yet light out and that I was trying to sleep! They all seemed to think that it was hillarious that the chicken and the horse and the ducks and the sheep all woke me up throughout the morning but that I wasn't woken up by a siren that passed by. I guess it's the city girl in me!
That morning Julien and I decided to go for a run, and let me tell you it is much easier to go running when you have a beautiful countryside to look at. However the attack of the animals did not stop in the morning. As we were running I was accosted by a very loud and worrisome sheep. Julien was not alarmed at all but I must have jumped 4 feet when it baahhhed at me. He seemed to think that it was hillarious as well.
Thankfully we went running when we did because the weather in Normandie is crazy. One second it is beautiful, the sun is shinning, the birds are singing, and the next minute you are in the middle of a horrible and dark thunderstorm that is pouring rain like a shower. It is astonshing! We then had a family lunch which meant a lot of drinking of course and a lot of ketchup for Julien because he eats it like it is water. I have never seen someone eat so much ketchup in my life. His family thankfully also thinks that this is as weird as I do so for once we all had a laugh at Julien's expense.
Beach at Yport |
Etreat, we were on top of this cliff! |
Fécamp |
More updates to come soon, the next blog post will be about the Croatian and Slovenian adventure!
Sounds like a lovely weekend.
ReplyDeleteI like it that they were curious about you as an American. It is interesting to pick up on what their stereotypes of us are. Makes me wonder what I have wrong about the French.