When I got in the plane to go to France I felt a weird sense of nostalgia, of fear. I started thinking about how it would be like, how I would feel, if I would be able to communicate. I started to stress about living with a host family, I thought “What if they outright hate me?” “What if I can’t make friends?” I spent the whole flight just tossing in my sit trying to sleep but being utterly unable to. I couldn’t gather my thoughts. Even though I was stressing about all this I still had a false sense of happiness and confidence that everything would be alright. This positive feeling increased when I reached Marseille. As soon as I got off the plane and looked at the beautiful sunrise I could help but feel lucky to be able to be there and to see the beautiful, sunny,south of France. I will admit something though meeting my host mom wasn’t a walk in the park. She was waiting for me outside of immigration and hugged me as soon as she saw me! Her niceness wasn’t and issue for me, it was the fact that I couldn’t communicate with her what so ever! it was as if I had forgotten all the French I knew! I couldn’t formulate sentences, I couldn’t understand, I was in the border of a mental breakdown because I couldn’t open my mouth with out making mistakes! Yet she seemed to understand and tried to keep me calm and show me around AIX. From then on I have been recuperating my French little by little and have gained the ability to communicate fluent and have deep conversations with French speaking people. I believe that the hardest part of studying abroad is adapting but once you do you can think of study anywhere else. This experience has been amazing so far! I have made excelente friends and have made connections with people that I thought weren’t possible. I have alsi travelled around Europe a little. Not to brag but I’ve been to Monaco and London as well as other part of southern france such as Les Gorge de St.Croixe. France is a beautiful country with a beautiful language, I wish I could stay.
