Je rencontre ma famille française

I don't have long to write this, but I have to say, I am sooooo lucky! I think I have the best possible host family! Mme Macaire is extremely nice, polite and formal but completely understanding also. She is thin with dark brown hair, as is her daughter, Eléônore, or Eléô for short, who is 17 but seems MUCH older than that, seems almost older than me... The French are VERY serious about school.

Now, I thought I the familly had just one daughter, but really there are two older kids - Charles and Tiffany - away at school, but they return for the weekends. Also there is a French student renting a room - the one directly across from mine up on the third floor! - who goes back to his home on the weekends. So it's like a rotating ménagerie! The French student, François-Xavier or F.X. (pronounced eff-eeks) is in his first year of école préparatoire, which means he did very well on his Bac (French SATs but much harder and more important) and may get into a prestigious graduate school, and I probably won't see much of him because he goes to school 35 hours a week (!) and has an hour of homework for each class and some days has class beginning at 8 am and ending at 8 pm, although not straight through.

Dinner was interesting - I understood almost nothing because Eléô talks SO fast. Also, they eat even informal meals in courses - we had scrambled eggs, rice and bread, then after finishing that, salad, and following that, ended with yogurt (which is really different in France, not usually sweetened and kind of runny compared to American yogurt).

My room is really cute, small but charming, mostly blue and teal - my favorite colors... with a little desk, a window facing the street (but 3 floors up, remember) and my own shower next door. (Although the toilet's downstairs... and all the stairs squeak and all the doors close really loudly so it's hard to go down there quietly in the night, you know?) It was almost impossible to get my bags all the way up that long spiral staircase, but I did it! Now I see why they say pack light, but seriously, I will use every last thing I brought. I'm already thinking of things I should have brought but didn't. Tant pis!

So I stayed up 'til after 11 talking to F.X., which was fun but difficult because he doesn't know all that much English and I couldn't always think of the French word I wanted or understand the ones he was using. Sometimes we had to resort to using pictures! But it was interesting. It's almost easier for me to think in French than English now that I'm here, at least, it's really hard to switch back and forth!