Living with a host family is very different than my previous experiences traveling but that is a good thing in my opinion. My host Father speaks English well and my host Mother is learning English so sometimes conversations can be hard to get through because although I know some speech I am not very comfortable speaking French yet, but I am learning a lot of French while I am here! While the language barrier between my host family and I is there, it isn't bad to the point where we cannot communicate at all. As far as food my family always eats lunch at home, even if that means coming home from school or work, and we always eat dinner together. My host parents used to own a restaurant and my host Father is a chef so we eat lots of big and complicated dinners which I really enjoy! Both of my host parents like to run marathons so we have been doing a lot of hikes (my poor calves!) and a lot of walking around the city but that is very fun because it is something that I never really get to do around Phoenix so I enjoy that! Clara and her family do seem to be very close and they enjoy going to do activities together and so we all spend a lot of time together. From living with my host family I've gleaned that the closeness of families doesn't really change based off of living in France or the USA however families do seem much more active here. After all we did a hike yesterday that almost did me in and my host Father described it as a "...Sunday walk for most families." I've also learned that my host family unites around Clara's synchronized swimming team and the work that comes from that (working concessions, driving to practice, etc.). I'm sad to say that my time is almost halfway over but I'm loving it so far!
Au Revoir,
Emma!