Welcome to France!

I arrived in France on August 16^th, at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. The university arranged for a temporary host family to pick me up and take care of me until the dorms opened up, and waiting for me at the airport was Patrice Mothu and his 16-yr old daughter, Mathilde. The Mothu family lives in Combleux, a small town just east of Orléans and about an hour and a half away from Paris.

(Photos: The Mothu family home and the Mothu family.)

After a long overnight flight crossing 6 different time zones, I was hardly in the mood to do anything but sleep. Nevertheless, they were excited to have me there so I didn’t object when the insisted on treating me for lunch in downtown Paris, walking along the “Paris beach,” and passing by Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower for a few quick photos before taking me back to their home to meet Verónique, the mother of the family.

(Photos: The Eiffel Tower and a boat on the river in Paris.)

I have been extremely pleased with my French. Even though I cannot carry on a fluid conversation, I understood the majority of what is said to me and I can generally make myself understood despite repetitive vocabulary (for example, everything is “good” for me because I cannot say “nice” or “pretty” or anything else).

If I were to draw conclusions about all French people based on this family, I would say the women go completely crazy over cats and the men think that everything has a little sound that goes with it. Patrice always makes little noises for everything—a ‘tok’ everything he clicks on the computer, a ‘pat’ everything he picks something up, a ‘tak’ everytime he puts something down, a ‘shhhhhh’ to indicate fluid motion, and an "hup!" everytime he stands up. ‘Tik,’ ‘teek,’ ‘dop!’ ... everything makes a little noise.

(Photos: The cathedral in Orléans, the Joan of Arc statue in Orléans.)

Dinner, as with every meal, is followed by a choice of different cheeses to go on bread or crackers as well as yogurt. Then, after dinner, Patrice makes a big deal of pulling out their over 10 different flavors and styles of ice cream and presenting each one with a short introduction (“mmmm… this one is dark chocolate, mmm!”) This, combined of course his tiks toks taks and teeks of the sounds of the ice creams being picked up and put down, makes for something terribly hilarious.

I tried my best not to laugh, since no one else was. Perhaps the presentation of ice cream in France is a serious undertaking.

After two days with the Mothu family, I left for an amazing 2 week tour of Spain by myself. I have a ton of pictures and stories for this trip, so I created a different blog for my travels around Europe since I want this blog to focus on France: maija-europe.blogspot.com

After I came back, I spent another night with the Mothu family and then, the day before yesterday, I moved into my university dorm.