I have always wondered:

Why would anyone receive an unknown student into their own homes for almost a semester? Someone who does not speak the language, someone who does not know the city (or even the country), and someone who has done everything of their lives differently at their usual American home. Now imagine when you have lived in Paris all your life with your three sons and is married to a man from Marseille (seacoast city). Can’t get any more French than that. Then your oldest son decides to study in Portugal and things change. Poor Mme Mounier.

Wild enough to have an American living in their home, they get a Brazilian guy to be even more different from what they expected. Surprisingly, we love each other. The amount of activities we have done in the past month has surpassed the amount done during the first-week orientation craze.

Each one of them makes it so much easier to speak French, to enjoy my time here, and most importantly, to feel at home. Brothers that I get to watch soccer games with (some even live), father who I get to have a glass of wine and tell me about French culture, and mother who wants to learn Brazilian cuisine. I bet this is not your average class work, right? Much better than a French culture class, is to actually learn from these Parisians.

Have an art history exam coming up? How can we help? Here, take some books about French art history.

Have a free weekend in town? Let’s do all the “non-tourist” museums that there are in Paris.

Have a free Friday afternoon? Let me get off work early so we can play tennis together.

This family keeps surprising me, so I hope they enjoy the dinner I just prepared them, because our talks will certainly not stop anytime soon. I’ll keep you posted if I get the approval.

Until next time, from Paris.