Family Visit-Evreux

After some last minute pizzas and rose at Uncle Jean-Marie's off to the train station we went to head back to the north of France to connect with my mothers sister who is celebrating her 82nd birthday on September 6th but you wouldn't know it she is quite a pistol. Paris has 5 different train stations so depending on where you are going or where you are coming from in many cases you have to take the metro from one station to the other. We made our way through to the one that took us to the Normandy region to Evreux which is around an hour or so train ride from Paris.

It was really cool to see how close April and Aunt Monique got. Our Aunt does not speak any English and at times it is a challenge communicating with her but I am always honored to spend some time with her.

She has English speaking friends and we spent some time with Juliane who is about my age and I met her about 4 years ago. She lives just outside of the city in a beautiful cottage with a lovely garden. We spent 4days/3nights in the area. The time here was calm. My aunt prepared what was once my favorite French dishes....Lapin (Rabbit). I say this because when my mother was living she would prepare this on occasion and in my many visits to France someone in the family would prepare this for me knowing that I really enjoyed it. Over the last two visits here I have grown tired of it because my Aunt Monique makes it for me all the time and I just don't have the heart to tell her to cool it on the rabbit. I really don't mind having it from time to time but on last visit (2008) when I visited her we ate rabbit for 5 days that was almost 10 times. She made a huge batch of it so we ate it for each meal during the three days I was there then we went to LeHarve to cousins where she brought the rabbit dish with her. On this trip when we arrive guess what we had? Rabbit but this time only for two meals and when April and I left to visit cousin Fabienne in LaHarve we said our goodbye to Aunt Monique but to our surprise she took the train the next day to spend more time with us and would you believe it we had rabbit at another meal. Sure there are some things I can eat frequently but this is not one of them. I think my fond memories of my mom cooking it will no longer be the same.