(3-4): The Family

January 9, 2010 (Saturday) and January 10, 2010 (Sunday)

Previously on '(215) Days of Europe'...

...Andy went to France!

...He met cool Vassar-Wesleyan Paris Program kids!

...He stayed at a hostel for two days!

...Foreman got the cop's illness, and then the cop died! (Wait... sorry, wrong series)

...Andy got in a taxi leaving the hostel...

...

It is at this point in our story we take a break from the Vassar-Wesleyan scene to find Andy in a small, but still bustling, town just to the southwest of Paris called Boulogne-Billancourt. It's time to meet the family.

My host family is, in a word, wonderful. Mother, father, two boys, and a cat named Boo.

The boys are both adorable. They were a little under the weather on Saturday, but have been doing better since. The younger is 9 and plays piano* and rugby (playing for a team at probably the most esteemed rugby school in France). The older is 11, already in love with Marilyn Monroe, and plays golf. Both of them are learning English in school, and while I'm getting a better ear for it, they still speak French just a little too fast and not quite clearly enough for me to understand them all the time.

The father is a swim coach in Paris and knows a good deal about film; we've already had a good number of warm conversations about our favorites. Very personable, always smiles, and dresses very French. The mother has a good amount of English (which is quite useful at night, when my daily rations for speaking French correctly have been exhausted). She's an interior designer and always wants me to speak up if I need something, if I haven't eaten enough, etc.**

And Boo is an all-star. His meows always have great comic timing.

My room is also pretty great... I have a good-sized bed, a solid (as opposed to liquid or gaseous?) radiator that keeps the room pretty warm, a kitchenette where I hope to apply cooking lessons that I plan on taking later in the semester, and my own bathroom and (small) shower. There's also reliable wifi (remember, that's "wee-fee") here, and I have my own exit outside. I'm also about two blocks away from the metro. It's great: immeasurably better than what I had been expecting.

So, I spent Saturday getting settled and taking a walk around the town briefly with my host father and the older brother. There's a decent-sized mall with some pretty nice stores, a movie theatre, and more. There's a decent amount of money here, and the town is, like I said, just on the edge of the nation's capital.

I've moved from Bethesda, MD to Bethesda, France.

Anyway, that was Saturday. On Sunday, I slept in, put away my clothes, and my host mother, the younger brother, and I went to an exhibit*** about Brigitte Bardot, France's answer to Marilyn Monroe. She was a (very attractive) movie star who got her start in the French New Wave film Et Dieu... crea la femme (And God... Created Woman). We also went to a party for the younger brother's rugby team. It was a Gallette du Roi, a French new years' tradition where a special kind of cake (buttery, with a twist of lemon flavor, I want to say...?) is made and there's a little plastic toy baked into the cake somewhere. If your slice has it, you get to be king ("roi" in French, which rhymes with "moi") and wear a crown. I had heard about something similar in the U.S. as a Mardi Gras tradition, but maybe I'm wrong. Somebody can earn bonus points by researching and getting back to me.

After these events, the older brother, host mother, and I went for a drive around Paris to see all of the Christmas lights on many of the grand Avenues in Paris... Champs-Elysees, Opera, and more. There were some very neat lighting schemes, and it was fun to see the city by night. Also, these displays would be taken down the next day, so it was a unique opportunity.

There's also this thing going on in the first week I've been here-- makes for an interesting cultural note-- and those are sales ("soldes") in stores. Seems pretty mundane for the U.S., but then I take a closer look at the title of this blog and I remember that that is not, alas, where I am. In France, there are two week-long periods each year specified by the government when stores can have sales, which they can't do any other time. It's a trick to jump-start/regulate the economy, and as a loophole, there are "promotions" right afterward if the "soldes" don't quite achieve the expected results.

The family is also really good at helping me learn French (I heard that has something to do with why I'm here)... they often stop and ask if I know what a particular term means (I rarely do), they speak clearly, and they think that I "express myself perfectly" in French. We're off to a very good start.

So: two days with VWPP, two days with the family. Next time, a case of 'both sides now.'

-Andy

* I'll occasionally hear Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" followed by "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem.

**And she's Jewish.

***Here's a fun translation pitfall. A museum exhibition, in French, is an "exposition," not an "exhibition." The difference is whether you're showing off art to the public, or something else that the police will arrest you for not keeping to yourself.