Learning to appreciate my life in Rouen

Reading Mandi's post about settling for, and then in, Canton, I realized that I wasted my last two years here. After I left Manchester, all I could think about was how much I hated being back here. I didn't miss Manchester, but I missed London a whole lot, and felt completely stuck here. I still do to an extent, but I've also started to appreciate some of the things this town has to offer. There are a few nice coffee shops here, and some cute restaurants. You can get some good products at the Sunday market. 

Yesterday, I met with my friend Julie at the market, and we looked at antiques and tasted Greek olive oil at a Greek stand. I bought some really good olive oil from Crete, some kalamata olives, and the vendor gave me some Greek oregano. I also bought spiced mixed olives for my mother, who is a really big fan of those. Then, Julie and I stopped at a Lebanese food stand and bought some really subpar falafel and spinach fatayer, but Julie also got these very tasty red peppers stuffed with feta that were a great accompaniment to a Greek salad I had later. 

I'm going to make the Sunday market a staple of my weekends, because there's such a wide variety of produce and other foodstuff. My next trip will involve buying asparagus and cooking them for the first time. I'm salivating at the thought of asparagus with a lemon and olive oil drizzle, and a side dish of poached eggs. 

Once Brent arrives in mid-June, I know we're going to be exploring the town, checking out restaurants, and buying ingredients for the more extensive cooking we do when we're together. I'm really looking forward to that. And I'll make sure to take out my camera in public a lot more often too. I need to overcome that fear of getting told to put it away.