Impressionist Rouen

Wednesday was a nice quiet day in Rouen, gladly welcome after a busy weekend in Belgium, Etretat and Giverny (Monet's house), which was breathtaking, by the way. We had class (including a quiz on ancient Greek pronunciations (AHHHH!)) then spent the day in Rouen buying our train tickets to Marseille (it's amazing how much patience the trip planning people have), booking our hotel and planning our trip. After dinner we decided to check out the nightime art-light show here. 2 years ago they displayed a series of Monet's paintings with crazy renditions (complete with a flying witch) on the La Notre Dame Cathedrale de Rouen. This year they're showing a variety of impressionist works on the Musee des Beaux Arts. It was a really nice show. They had some very nice transitions, music, and twists on the paintings that gave it a new life.

It's days like these that I realize how much I love this city. :)

Le Musee des Beaux-Arts
Thursday we went to the Musee des Beaux Arts in Rouen, where they're having a special exposition for Impressionist works from Normandie. The most impressive part was the 12 or so paintings of the Cathedrale de Rouen by Monet. Monet painted approximately 30 pictures of the Cathedrale at different times during the day with different lighting. The mayor wasn't very interested in the paintings when Monet painted them, so they were scattered all over the world (1 of them was from the MFA in Boston, btw). It was really nice to see a dozen together again. Our walking tour guide said that they've been working on this Expo for 10 years-- you can definitely see and appreciate their hard work. It was a beautiful collection.

After the museum I stayed in town to shop and grab lunch. (I LOVE the summer sales!) At 18:00, Becky, George and I met up with Caroline and Tony to meet some other international students for some cheese and wine. It was a nice evening. We got to practice our French with a French student from Rouen named Charlotte and learn about the education program here in France. It was nice- hopefully we'll hang out again sometime.

After this, Becky and I went with Caroline, Yannick and Vicky (Katie's old teacher and his girlfriend) to meet up with some of Caroline's friends to watch the Thursday night terrace concert. During the summertime in Rouen they have concerts on Thursday nights in different locations all over Rouen. Tonight was a jazz theme. Unfortunately, in true Norman style, it started to pour! (Il pleut comme le vauche pis <- new expression from Yannick meaning it's raining cats and dogs, except it literally means it's raining like a cow peeing). We got out of the rain and headed to Big Ben Pub where we met up with other students and had a nice evening out.

Gotta love the rain here ;)

Bisous,
Lisa