I think I finally understand now why a whole lot of europeans crowd down to the Mediterranean in July and especially August. Because the weather here is HORRIBLE in August. Man I can not believe the rain we have had lately. It is like Vancouver in December or January! Crazy.

So any ways, I headed down to Normandy in France for the weekend. And it was pretty cool. Both Rouen and Amiens had these really cool old churches that they are in the middle of restoring. It is quite interesting to see the old, black, damaged areas and the new restored parts together. The restoration is very very cool. Amazing amount of people and figures and other cool carvings on the outside of these very cool churches.

Rouen was very nice too. Very bizarre style of buildings that almost look like they were built all crooked on purpose. Bizzare. I think they must have proper straight frames on the insed though. Otherwise I am not exactly sure how they are still standing! Oh well. So spent Saturday walking around and site-seeing as usual. Was very lucky that it didn't actually rain on me while out so that was good. But it did rain on the entire drive down (like 4 hours) and briefly when I was in Amiens.

Saturday night I thought would be real fun, as French boys are always hot, and there was only two places to go to in town so could not end up in the non-"in" place... but alas, if only my new knowledge of the shitty weather in northern europe would have come sooner, then I would have know that there would be NO people in Normandy in August! The first bar I went to had about 30 people. So did a quick u-turn and headed to the only club. Which ended up being closed! On a Saturday night! Crazy. Spartacus really let me down as it didn't mention anything about it closing in August. Oh well. Only regret was that I completely wasted one of my ant-acid stomach pills and I am running dangerously low. I really hope they don't run out before I go back to Vancouver. And I have one last weekend in London, lord knows how many pills that will cost me.

So got lots of sleep on Saturday night.

Then, was up real early to do some more sightseeing the next day. First I went to Dieppe, which I quite liked. I can't remember if I have been there before (when I was in northern France with my family in 1994, or if I heard of it somewhere on TV, it's famous for being liberted by Canadians, or if maybe my friend Joe went there on his trip to Normandy last year. But it was in my mind and a lot of the road signs lead there so that's why I went. It was a very nice fishing village. Bought some nice warm french bread for the week and had a great lunch in front of the boats in the harbour.

Bram would have really loved all those boats in the harbour. Some were really huge sail boats. Very cool. It was a little chilly, but was still able to have lunch just inside a glassed off patio looking out over the harbour. Very nice.

After lunch I drove up to Calais, where a lot of ferry's bound for England leave from. An alright town. Not as nice or as much character as Dieppe, but has a very cool beach. I imagine when it is really nice that it would be very cool. Unfortunately it was still quite overcast. Not raining but still with the wind that seems to always be present on that french/belgium/netherlands coast, it was very cold. I have a long sleave shirt and my spring windbreaker done right up, so typical spring/fall weather in Vancouver. And guess what? People were swimming in the ocean?!?! Crazy. Most were kids, which I can understand because they can weather a lot. But there was also a lot of adults! Crazy people. It was a cool beach though. They had volleyball tournament things going on, so watched that for a while. Also had a huge ice cream, OK so I do weird things in the cold as well. After an hour headed back to Antwerp and caught a movie Sunday evening. Saw "The Island". Terrible. Can't wait to get my DVD player back so I can fast-forward though drivel like that... Oh well, maybe soon.