Spazztic Weather

It's rather funny, the weather here reminds me a lot of the weather we have in the Shenandoah Valley in March and October. It's completely random. In France though there does seem to be a pattern so to speak. It's one thing for an entire week. For example this week has been rainy, partly cloudy with a thunderstorm in the afternoon. Last week was Sunny all the time with mild temperatures. The week before it was partly cloudy and colder. The first several weeks I was here it was rainy and cold. So next week who knows? Hopefully though it will be sunny with warm temperatures.

This weekend is my trip to Rouen. I leave bright and early Saturday morning. The train leaves at 7:50 am so I have to be there an hour or so early. The station is literally on the other side of town so I have to budget 45 minutes for that. I'm excited. Rouen wasn't my first choice but the train for Easter weekend was really cheap. So I thought "what the heck, why not." I'm spending three days and two nights there and I'm staying at a hotel not a hostel. The hostel was just built and I was having trouble booking it, not to mention it's 2km outside of town, where as the hotel is right beside the Cathedral. So even thought the hotel is a little more expensive I think I'll make up for it with not having to worry about transportation. Besides, since I am in the middle of town I can walk everywhere. Speaking of transportation, Rouen actually has a metro system that connects with some other towns outside of the city so I think that I will look in that and explore the outlying area.

As far as things to visit and see, Rouen has an abundance of Museums, Religious sites, monuments, and parks and gardens. It's also the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. There are several museums for her, a church, a bridge and an avenue named after her. I also want to see if I can go to some other places outside of Rouen. There are a lot of chateaux and abbeys outside of Rouen in the country side. They're not far. I think the farthest is only 10minutes via bus and the bus only goes 40mph in the country. I just hope the weather holds out. It looks like right now that Saturday could be rainy, Sunday is suppose to be Sunny, Monday might be rainy again. We'll see. Like I was saying earlier the weather here is spastic.

As for the rest of the week, I am working on a paper for ROTC back at school and I am reading the second book for that class as well. I am just glad though that I have what amounts to a weekend in the middle of the week. Meaning I can work on a lot of things. I've also done a little shopping for spring clothes. The interesting thing about Paris is that a lot of these clothing stores only have maybe a few stores in Paris, and that's it. So prices can be really expensive. However, there are of course the very popular worldwide names here also that make French style clothes for cheaper prices, which is nice. There are clothing stores everywhere too. You may think I'm kidding but I'm not. It's part of their culture and always will be.

Well that's about it. I apologize that I haven't been able to post pictures of the Louvre. I will try perhaps Friday night before I leave, but no promises. I will post a page then for Rouen of course and then the Loire valley, which is with ISA the next weekend. Take care and Bonne Journee!