The Dwarf :: Le Nain

When I filled out the application for the year abroad, I had to write a letter to my future host family.  Tip: I suggest you write things that will be applicable to you when you live with them.  I vaguely mentioned in my letter that I did a sport for my school, and then over the summer I became a blob of laziness.  Just a little helpful note for you, since Google was surprisingly unhelpful.

By the way, when I say future host family, I don't mean to people I knew (at the time).  Nope, I had to write a letter, about myself, to a group of people, with whom, I was officially less than strangers (now, thankfully, not so much).

Take a minute to picture that.  First, imagine a fellow classmate.  You've never talked to this student.  Now, also pretend that this classmate speaks a completely different language than you and so you must communicate through dictionaries and large, round about ways to describe things.  I had to ask how to say "seeds" by calling them the "tiny balls in the grapes".  That's just the beginning.  You have to write a letter to this student, over the internet, and then live with them and their family for a year.

Okay, now this next bit is going to sound just a little bit sketchy.  At the start of my summer, YFU sent me a file about my (at the time) future host family.  I guess a family picked me out of a huge folder of potential exchange students (for which I am completely grateful, I love it here), and that was the first impression I received about them.

Well, at least on paper.  In person, they were much more intimidating (not like rawr bat wielding serial killers, but more because they were FRENCH and...real people, you know?  Not just letters on paper).

I don't have anything negative to say about my family at all!  They're understanding and kind, and incredibly generous to offer to let me stay with them for a year.

I mentioned how I didn't meet them all at once?  I first met my host mother and a host brother.  I didn't recognize them at first, because, well, they're so TALL.  I guess the pictures they'd sent me (that sounds really weird) were kinda old because my host brother seemed WAY shorter in the picture.  I'd thought that my host mother and I would be even in terms of height.  Haha, no.  I reach her shoulder, and that's when she doesn't have her heels on.  With the heels, she's taller than everyone else in my host family.  She'd probably be taller than everyone in my actual family too. 

The only person shorter than me is my host sister, whom I met later, and that's only because she's seven.  It doesn’t count, since it’s like comparing a toy poodle to a …not toy poodle (I don’t claim to be literate in dog terminology).  I bet that when she reaches my age, she'll be taller than me too. 

It was a bit awkward, I think, at first because I was too excited to properly form sentences.  On the car ride back to the house from the Orientation though, I had a wonderful (for my weak French) conversation with both of them.  I was able to talk with my host brother about scrabble (there was a McDonalds scrabble board in the car), iPhone app games (Angry Birds to the rescue every time), and body functions. 

Let me explain the last one.  In the car, there was a poster for a TV show my host sister watches, called "Il était une fois."  It's similar to Cyberchase, being an educational show for kids, except it's not limited to one subject, like how Cyberchase focuses on math (it depresses me that there is enough math in the world that we have a TV show about it...for kids).  Anyways, this specific poster featured the characters of the Il était une fois describing human body parts: our skin, our stomachs, our blood, etc.

It took us about an hour to return to the house, since my host mother offered to drop off another YFU student at his host family's house.  It would've been shorter, but my host mother and I talked so much that she forgot to take the exit of the highway!

The entire neighborhood's so picturesque.  You know that scene in the Beauty and the Beast where Belle is walking past all the houses while reading a blue book?  This neighborhood looks just like that, except less noisy and dirty; the houses and buildings look the same in the movie, just like tall townhouses.

The house I'm living in used to be...how to describe it, like a small version of an apartment building.  That's why there's more than one doorbell next to the front door.  Of course, now only my host family (and I) live in it, so it's a pretty, big building.  There's no lawn, nor white picket fence, but it overlooks a clear river and has a big garden to the side.

Anyways, I met my host father and my other host brother at the house.  I think that I met one of their (many) cousins that night too.  My host family, the people I actually live with, is already pretty big; there's a mom and dad, two teenage boys, and a daughter.  However, my host mother has a bajillion cousins, whom I keep meeting on the streets whenever I walk to the town with my host family.

That's right walking.  Aghh, this poor American can't go everywhere by car anymore.  I'm dying walking up three stairs to my room everyday already.  Poor me.

Haha just kidding.  I really like walking everywhere in my host city.  My host parents insist that the city is not very big at all, it's a smaller town of France.  Of course, whenever you go anywhere new, everything seems much more bigger and confusing.

Here's hoping I don't lose my head keeping track of the bajillion cousins and the "tiny" city.