The rain hasn't stopped much since I got here.  Apparently, it was beautiful here the week before I arrived.  After the long flight from San Francisco I was eager to meet the French family that I would be living with.  I thought their son was going to be meeting me at the airport, but it turned out that there was a miscommunication between me and the agency who placed me with the family.  Stressed about finding their house, I took a taxi whose driver had no problem overcharging me by €30.  I was still shaky on the euro-to-dollar conversion rate, so I wasn't in a place to dispute the cost.

The important thing was that I was at the house; it is the home of Antoine and Florence Septenville in Suresnes, France.  If you thought I was going to be in Paris, don't worry--it's a tiny city just on the western edge of Paris (right on the other side of Bois de Bologne for those who know Paris a little bit).  They have three kids: two girls and a boy.  Since their daughters are grown and have moved out they decided to rent out their rooms.  Their son, Baptiste, is 24 years old and lives in the room right next to mine.  He was the only one there to greet me last Friday because the agency had given them the wrong date for my arrival.  Two days before I came here the family was given the correct date, but only after they had already made plans to go to their home in the country in Normandie.  I briefly met Antoine, and then he and Baptiste left to meet Florence and some of their other family for the weekend.

Too much detail.  Let's talk about the language.  First off, I forgot how tiring it is to speak another language all day long.  I find that by the end of the day my ability to speak digresses, and I don't pay as much attention to my accent.  I thought I spoke a decent amount of French this past semester, but in this past week I've probably almost matched that amount.  It's like I was running 3-5 miles consistently, and now I've begun the marathon.  Luckily, I love French, and everyday I start out ready to improve.

To be honest, my capacity in French seems to me a paradox.  No one thinks I'm American when I speak and, on good days, I even convince a few people I'm French.  I've been told regularly in the past week how strange it is how well I speak (my favorite comment came from a recent convert to our church here who said, "Mais, ce n'est pas normal qu'un Américain parle comme ça"..."It's not normal for an American to speak French like that").  But despite the compliments, I have been humbled by how much I don't understand and how much I struggle to adequately express myself sometimes.  I forgot how much harder it is to understand when natives are talking to each other and not to me.  Take today at lunch for example.  Today is a French holiday, the equivalent of Labor Day in the States, so Florence made a nice lunch (a salad of tomatoes and avocados in a vinaigrette, cold sheep meat, and cooked potatoes, plus lots of bread and more than six different cheeses to choose from, of course).  When they talk to me I understand without trying.  But as they talk to each other about random subjects I find my mind drifting and not picking up on all the idioms.  It is amazing how much we use expressions that don't really translate without even realizing it.  I feel like I'm constantly asking about a word or a phrase that I've never heard before.

I don't remember how often I'm supposed to write these blogs for my coursework while I'm here; I've got a lot more on my mind that I could write about, but I feel like this is already too long.  In case I forget, here are some of the other things I'd like to cover: figuring out the Paris metro system, grocery shopping for the first time, going to church and meeting the YSA here, sight-seeing, and starting work.  Pour l'instant, cela me suffit!

À bientôt,
Brian