A Week in Rouen

It’s been only 3 months since I came back from France, but it already seems so far in the past. It seems a whole world away from where I am now, in the silicon valley of India, Bangalore. It actually is a whole world away. A typical day there in France started with me struggling to let go of the blanket. Damn, it was cold. It took a lot of willpower to get out of those blankets. Then I used to cook stuff for breakfast, not ‘cooking’ in the real sense, just used to heat up some milk in the microwave and serve it with cornflakes, followed up with some fruits. Then, I used to have a wash and rush to the bus stop to catch the 8:17 am bus from right outside my residence at Mont Saint Aignan. I remember the time like it was just yesterday. After all, I spent six months trying to rush up stuff to meet that 8:17 deadline. Not that there were no more buses. Just that if I could take that bus, I generally could catch the connecting Tram from Rouen City Centre to my College, on the run. The travelling took around an hour but it was never boring. All it took to not get bored was to look out the window. France is Beautiful. Particularly, small towns like Rouen and its suburbs.

After spending the day at the institute, I used to come back to my room at around 7pm. This time, I actually did do some ‘cooking’. Rajma Chawal, Chole Chawal and Chicken Curry were a few of the delicacies we, Aayush and myself, tried our hands on. Sudarshan was a vegetarian, and we mostly cooked Chicken, so he used to do his own cooking. Sometimes it felt irritating having to cut the vegetables, chicken, heating up the oil and cook, but mostly it was fun. Our fourth Musketeer, Neogi, used to peek in and ask if we needed any help. Though mostly he appeared at a time when we were almost finished cooking and the only thing left for him to do was to serve himself the food. He maintained that time consistency throughout the six monthsJ. But still, he was the one who did the dish washing later. Then, we used to watch ‘Friends’ over the dinner. I guess I saw most of the ten seasons of Friends, during our dinner time. I will never forget those days.

Almost all weekdays went the same way, until Friday. Friday was the one day I eagerly waited for. It may sound a little stupid, but I loved to visit the Supermarket, Carrefour, on every Friday, with a religious consistency. I loved it out there. The fact that you could buy everything you can think of buying, under the same roof, amazed me. I used to travel from the College to Carrefour every Friday, and these two were the two extremes of the City Transportation Network. It took more than an hour to reach Carrefour. I just used to go around the place with such amazement in my eyes, though I never really had much money on me to buy anything. Carrefour was the place where I bought some food stuff, meant especially for the weekend, like strawberries, frozen and cooked chicken pieces which you just had to heat up in the microwave and eat. It was kind of costly, so I could do that only on weekends. Then, on Saturdays, I used to go to another supermarket, Saint Sever, in the city centre to buy food stuff for the next week. It was cheaper, not so exotic, and perfect for students like us, who were always looking for bargains. There was this particular brand called Eco+, which was the cheapest in the market. You could find Eco+ branded bread, jam, clothes, anything. The quality wasn’t so great, but it was good enough. The Seine River was on the way to Saint Sever. I used to get down the bus at Rouen Gare and instead of taking the tram to the supermarket; I used to walk to the market, through the city centre. I loved doing that, after all you can’t find so many people at the same place at the same time, anywhere and anytime else in the entire city. And on Sundays, everything in the city except the buses and trams was closed, so I did nothing much but eat and sleep. That was how I spent almost every week there in France. I really miss all that sometimes.