"Coo Coo" (or A Marathon Tour of Rouen)

We finally made it to Rouen. As we drove down the avenue along the water, we could see lots of sailors from different countries walking around as well as lots ofstores selling stripey sailor shirts. Then Terri told us that there was an exhibit of ancient ships on the port. And we could see them for the bus windows. Then she got a walkie-talkie message from Prof. Blair. after which she informed us that we only had 45 minutes to spend in town as we were behind schedule. What schedule?

Net was that we got dropped off on the end of town where they burned Joan of Arc, and we had to make it to the end with the cathedral that has the Butter Tower, or face having to take the train back to Paris. "Just look for the gothic spire" Blair said. Umm...yeah. Medieval town in France. There's even a gothic spire on the public restroom. Hence, we were forced to join one of the program's tours.

Ours was run by Terri, which was cool, except for the fact that she kept saying "coo coo" everytime she wanted to get someone's attention. It got annoying after the 8th time.

The whole town kind of reminded me of the many, many , many little town with litte streets and big churches I saw in Germany last year. Our tour included, in fast-forward: the church that's located over Joan of Arcs pyre, The oldest Brasserie in Rouen, some tiny streets, the oldest building in the world that houses a McDonald's, more tiny streets, and finally the Cathedral, which was incredibly beautiful. "Coo Coo!"

Gothic, but it has a yellowish tower that called...the Butter Tower. But it's not called that because of it's color, but because it was paid for with butter tithes.

After seeing the inside of the cathedral, Terri told us to that we had 10 minutes to get to the meeting place, but that we should spend those minutes by seeing the antique book market and statue garden right on the left side exit of the church. Don, Karen, Gina and I ran over as fast as possible (it's a huge church and we were tired after getting across town ASAP), just to find out that here was nothing there except a yarn store and an apartment building. Either Terri wanted to ditch us, or she's the one who was "Coo Coo".

Overall, the trip was fun but extremely hurried. Don said that they run out of time on every trip and end up rushing from place to place without actually seeing anything or having the opportunity to buy stripey shirts. We did see the big ships on the harbour as we were driving away though.

(Oh, and someone mentioned seeing a restaurant called Brasserie St. Joan D'Arc. I'm not sure if I believe it.)