Hello Again,
Something I have thought about a lot since being back is my experience with a host family. I know so many people will say that their host family is what really made their time abroad, so I had some high expectations for mine. I did not think I could have any more bad luck when it came to living with people because I have some roommate stories that are crazy to say the least.
Upon arrival in France, it turned out that I had not actually used up all my bad luck in this department. My host mom was the last person to pick anyone up, so I was standing in the streets of Paris for quite some time waiting for her. She was unwilling to open the car doors enough for me to put my suitcases in, and yelled when I got them too close to the car. She spoke faster than I had ever heard anyone speak in my life, and refused to slow it down for me.
My host siblings were also out there to put it lightly. They were constantly undressed or screaming and sometimes both. They did not close the door when they went to the bathroom, and they left their dirty clothes all around the house as they pleased. It was not something I was used to, but it was also not particularly French.
The apartment itself was nice, but it was so far away from anything that I had to spend at least an hour on the metro to get anywhere I wanted to go. Immediately the whole situation had me down. I was so excited to have an amazing host family that I would keep in touch with forever and have a bond with, but this was clearly not going to be the case.
I had never heard of a situation like this happening before, but I quickly decided it was not going to ruin my study abroad experience. It turns out you can still make lifelong connections, even if you aren’t exactly close to your host family. I wish more people had told me stories like that. Maybe the experience in the home wasn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean that your study abroad experience will be anything short of amazing.