Home stay.

So I realized I haven't blogged very much about my daily life here in Paris, so this is the first in a series of posts attempting to describe what I do and how I live on a day to day basis.  First up: home stay.

My first encounter with my home stay family was when my home stay dad met me in a police station on the outskirts of Paris to pick me up after the mugging incident (speaking of, I'm going to blog about that too). I'm sure it was a good first impression.  We took a taxi where the view outside the windows evolved quickly from ghetto Paris to bustling, café-filled Paris. They live right off a very large public square where there are always people and cars and commotion. Their place is a beautiful 19th-century style apartment with tall windows and very ornate decorations on the ceilings and walls.  My room is wonderfully large with a TV, a desk that is now cluttered with all my knick knacks, a large comfy bed, an alarm clock that is probably intentionally set 17 minutes fast (Parisian style), large windows that overlook an inner courtyard that our apartment shares with all the apartments in our building.  My host brother's bedroom is across the hall, then the living room, the kitchen/dining area, the bathroom, and finally the master bedroom.

My host family is really fantastic. It's a small family with a goofy dad that does all the chores and the cooking (which is amazing, to be discussed later in the post), a mom who works at a bank who's really nice and, as far as I can tell, super French and liberal, and a 22-year-old son that's way cooler than me (works at a bar every night and has a gorgeous girlfriend that eats with us sometimes).  I'm not really sure what the specifics on the family are because the host dad (Bruno) pointed out to me once that Quentin (the son) is Patricia's (the mom) son and not his, and I'm not sure if Bruno works because all I see him doing is cleaning the house and cooking. And I never really talk to Quentin because he works super late in the bar and only eats with us occasionally. But the family is really nice and really funny and fake-argue all the time (Bruno and Quentin like to gang up in arguments against Patricia at the dinner table) so I like them.

It's kind of weird though because I only really talk to the family at dinner.  In the morning, they always leave me a bowl of really great cereal (JESS-IT'S SPECIAL K AVEC CHOCOLAT!!) because they've always left for work by the time I wake up, then I don't come back from class until 6 or 7.  At that point it's dinner time, then the usually ask me about my day and what I'm planning on doing that night.  Afterwards, I try to help with cleaning up but they always insist that it's fine, then they're like, have fun tonight! Or, good luck studying! Then that's it.  Apparently it's part of their culture (French, I mean) to have the college-aged kids really independent at home (read: they don't see them except for dinner) but I still don't want to be rude and make it seem like they're just my food-providers, you know? And usually after dinner, they say, OK, see you tomorrow! Maybe it's just a function of the fact that they're all kind of busy and really independent.  Which might have been what I asked for (and is perfect for me) because my responses to the housing form went something like this:

How self-reliant do you consider yourself? VERY
Have you lived in a big city? YES
Have you lived abroad? YES
Do you go out a lot at night and often come home after 1 a.m.? YES

I just wanted to cover all my bases, you know? So yeah, I think I got the family that was perfect for me since I get to be super independent (and, in reality, I am a pretty independent person), and they're used to it with a bartender-son.

I was going to talk about the cooking but I'll save that for a later post about French food in general since this post is already getting long.  But before I leave, I'll put up pictures of my bedroom and the view outside my window and maybe my host family's apartment later if I get around to taking those pictures without being awk.

My desk area, with the funny leaf decorations or something on the wall:

Tall windows...also notice the ornate ceiling:

View out the window (I was going to get a better one, but then I saw a family awkwardly staring at me from across the courtyard):

And finally, my ceiling as viewed from my bed:

If you've made it this far, congratulations. I feel like I should give you a prize or something.