The first seven weeks in France have brought with them all the challenges we expected, new ones we could have never seen coming and so many new adventures. The arrival was a blur of fatigue, jetlag and cultural shock, but once we got settled into our rhythm, adapted to our new families and started school, the pieces of our life in France have begun to fall, like the leaves covering the sidewalks, into a distinguishable shape.
My host mother is already an indispensable part of my life here. We understand each other’s sense of humor and she has been giving me the constant corrections and nudges I need to improve my French. When I come back from school, I feel as though I am coming home. I know the rhythm of the house and where the plates are and when my host cat gets fed and which way to turn the lock to open the front door. They may seem like small details, but it’s the small details that help you adjust, that make you feel like you’re at home, that create a more vivid experience. One of my favorite parts about France is dinner time, which takes at least an hour and more often than not involves conversations about politics, cultural differences or school. But the times when I sit on the couch with my host mother, cupping a mug of tea, talking about every possible topic and them some help us to understand each other better. She also thought it was amusing that I raked the leaves in her yard, like I do in the United States, without asking if it was necessary, as if I was in my own house.
Right now we are about to finish our Toussaint break, and with that school will pick up and the pace will increase once again out of the half slumbering tempo we’ve been in for the past week. School here is hard, there is no denying that, but it is extremely rewarding. I certainly have less homework every night, but what work I do have requires that I concentrate on it because even reading a paragraph can take half an hour or more. However when you finally understand what that paragraph is talking about, and can find the nuances in the French text written two hundred years ago, you feel a true sense of accomplishment. The classes too are interesting, discussing relevant topics that push your language abilities as you try to explain the details in a Renaissance painting, or debate about Voltaire’s Candide.
Creating a backdrop to our studies here and in a way, another classroom, is the city of Rennes itself. It is a mixture of old and new, with the historical district and its narrow, winding streets to the big shopping centers where you can find almost everything you could need. It is still a novelty for me, I come from a more rural town, that I can get on a bus that stops almost next to my house, be at the city center in 12 minutes (I timed it) and go to a café with my friends. But at the same time, I feel like a local, using my bus and metro card, knowing which door enter through and to say bonjour to the bus driver. And slowly we are beginning to feel more like locals, who are part of the everyday life of Rennes. After all, we have passed the point of “vacation” and can know honestly say that we are living in France.
My host mother is already an indispensable part of my life here. We understand each other’s sense of humor and she has been giving me the constant corrections and nudges I need to improve my French. When I come back from school, I feel as though I am coming home. I know the rhythm of the house and where the plates are and when my host cat gets fed and which way to turn the lock to open the front door. They may seem like small details, but it’s the small details that help you adjust, that make you feel like you’re at home, that create a more vivid experience. One of my favorite parts about France is dinner time, which takes at least an hour and more often than not involves conversations about politics, cultural differences or school. But the times when I sit on the couch with my host mother, cupping a mug of tea, talking about every possible topic and them some help us to understand each other better. She also thought it was amusing that I raked the leaves in her yard, like I do in the United States, without asking if it was necessary, as if I was in my own house.
Right now we are about to finish our Toussaint break, and with that school will pick up and the pace will increase once again out of the half slumbering tempo we’ve been in for the past week. School here is hard, there is no denying that, but it is extremely rewarding. I certainly have less homework every night, but what work I do have requires that I concentrate on it because even reading a paragraph can take half an hour or more. However when you finally understand what that paragraph is talking about, and can find the nuances in the French text written two hundred years ago, you feel a true sense of accomplishment. The classes too are interesting, discussing relevant topics that push your language abilities as you try to explain the details in a Renaissance painting, or debate about Voltaire’s Candide.
Creating a backdrop to our studies here and in a way, another classroom, is the city of Rennes itself. It is a mixture of old and new, with the historical district and its narrow, winding streets to the big shopping centers where you can find almost everything you could need. It is still a novelty for me, I come from a more rural town, that I can get on a bus that stops almost next to my house, be at the city center in 12 minutes (I timed it) and go to a café with my friends. But at the same time, I feel like a local, using my bus and metro card, knowing which door enter through and to say bonjour to the bus driver. And slowly we are beginning to feel more like locals, who are part of the everyday life of Rennes. After all, we have passed the point of “vacation” and can know honestly say that we are living in France.