Bienvenue à la France

     I arrived the day before yesterday in Saumur, France, a small city where I'll spend seven weeks studying French through immersion and daily language classes with IU Honors (Indiana University).  My host family consists of my mother, Véronique, who works as an EMT, my 11-year-old brother, Arnaud, and their dog, Gigy.  They live in an apartment on the third floor (no elevator) near the center of the city, and my room has a balcony overlooking the river.  They are very friendly and chatty which is a plus for my French, although usually I just smile whenever my host brother talks --we can go an entire five minutes without me understanding any of it or him noticing.  I think Gigy understands better than I.  He really likes video games and, for some reason, really likes me to watch him play video games too (I've fallen asleep to him nonstop narrating his game for me).

Arnaud

     As my interaction with French stereotypes go so far, I have a balcony overlooking the Loire (almost as romantic as the Seine) within eyeshot of a castle.  The streets are all narrow and lined with ancient buildings (like the saying "100 years is a lot in America, yet 100 miles is a lot in Europe"), but Saumur is like Carmel, Indiana in that there are lots and lots of roundabouts!  I have realized that France is mainly countryside.  Most of the other Americans' host families live in surrounding villages.  So far I have only seen Arnaud wear stripped shirts (a total of five).  As well, he and all other French boys have a strange fondness for capris.  French men seem to have more of a fondness for rather short shorts.  Anywhere soft drinks are sold, wine by the glass is also available.  I have been offered a baguette with every meal. (By the way, baguette also means wand in French --learned this from watching Harry Potter-- and Hogwarts is Pudlard).  On Saturday we watched Arnaud play in a handball tournament, a sport I had never before encountered in the United States, but it is almost as intense to the French as ping pong is to the Chinese.  On Sunday we visited the military base nearby Saumur where we played paintball!  Those French guys didn't know what hit them.

The view from my balcony