Day one of Life with a Host Family

Today I moved in with my host family -- well my host mom. For my year abroad, I will be living in a beautiful apartment with my host mom. My host mom is an older women, who has lived in Aix-en-Provence for nearly 30 years. When I arrived at the apartment, breakfast was waiting for me: jam, bread, crêpes, and coffee.

After finishing our breakfast, my host mom and I discussed the rules for the apartment. As someone who has lived in my own apartment for the past two years, where I have been free to do whatever I want, this is a bit weird for me. My host mom thinks it was necessary to have a curfew, to ease her mind, and assure my safety in this new place. While, I see where she is coming from and completely respect this request, it is challenging to conform to someone else's rules after having complete freedom before coming here.

Later in the afternoon, my host mom and I took a trip to some small stores, where we purchased food for dinner. For dinner, my host mom prepared a tomato and mozzarella salad, pasta, peppers (marinated in some fancy way), bread, chips, and some rosé (the first bottle of alcohol I've purchased!). After dinner, we ate some fruit on the terrace while discussing political differences and similarities between France and the United States.

Overall, I am very excited for this adventure with my host mom and I am so glad I made the decision to live with a host family. Despite the odd readjustments I have to make, having someone there to help me figure things out and practice my French outside of class and ordering food is so useful!