Week 3: The Homestay

September 8, 2007

(photo: View from the kitchen window)

I live in Paris. I live in Paris. C’est incroyable! (It is unbelievable)!

Today, I moved into my homestay. I live with the Palayarets, a family of five (7 actually, but 2 kids are moved out). 12-year-old Basile (God bless him, he thinks I understand his rapid speech), 15-year-old Madeline, 18-year-old Mathieu, and their parents. They are all very nice, and the mother is very thorough in telling me everything (though this is the first time they’ve housed a foreign student), but I must say I feel bad because I think they think that I understand a lot more of what their saying than I actually do. Unfortunately, I have this habit of simply nodding my head and saying “oui” when I have no idea what they’re saying, and that seems to make them think that I know exactly what they’re saying.

It probably doesn’t help that when they had their Italian neighbors over for coffee and conversation, I told them, “Je comprends bien,” when the reality is that the only reason I truly understood anything was because the Italians were still working on their French, as well. Speak slowly…and I will understand.

Anyway, I live in this amazing old apartment building from I don’t know what century she told me with quaint décor and a view of the Eiffel Tower from my bathroom window. How perfect. I can brush my teeth while gazing at the symbol of the most romantic city on the planet.

This particular quartier of the 15th arrondissement in which I live is so “animé!” (lively). We’re neighbors with the Franprix (supermarket), close to 3 different Metro stations, down the street from a mall, movie theatres, shops, and some famous restaurants, and a 15-min. walk from the Luxemburg Gardens. Not bad, eh? I still can’t believe it myself. There’s even a post office on the backside of the block.

I have a sizable room and I am sharing the bathroom with the kids downstairs, which is a good setup, I would say. It's très mignon: in addition to a few pictures of Mount Saint Michel on the wall (a place I really want to go in the North of France), the family put up a few pictures of the United States to help me feel more at home (the photos show some Grand Canyon-type places in Utah). Actually, Madame Palayret said that they took a family vacation a few years back around California and Arizona, so they have a pretty good idea of where I’m from.
(photo: my cozy new bedroom)
***

For the first time in my life, I understand the difficulty of being different. I mean, really different. Foreign. Being an American in Paris is truly a test of self confidence. It’s so obvious—everyone knows you’re American. I asked a girl in the Metro last night how she knew we were American, if not for the language. Immediately she answered, because of your blonde hair and white teeth. Great. The two things that I can’t really change to fit in with the crowd. Unless I want to obliterate years and dollars and pains of dentist appointments.

Americans always seem to find each other in foreign countries. We’re like those giant red magnets, just zooming along on metros and snap! We’ve found each other and can’t get away without a serious effort. Last night on the Metro we just happened to be sitting directly across from a guy who lives in San Francisco. Not only that, but I told him that I go to school at Santa Clara U, and he was like, oh, I go to their 10 p.m. student masses on Sundays sometimes. I was like, no freaking way, dude, that’s not possible because I’m there every weekend.* But of course it’s possible, even though it always seems like an unbelievable coincidence. We can’t help it. We’re magnets. C’est bizarre.

So, being the insecure, inexperienced American that I am, I go to the local Franprix, trying to mask the recent style I’ve been sporting called <<à la mode de deer-in-the-headlights>>. It’s classy. I blunder through aisles, amazed by the lunchmeat packs of—at most—4 slices each, nearly knocking over a stand of vegetable seed packets, standing for 10 minutes in a line where nobody but me is using a bulky shopping cart that you have to pay 1 euro to use (no wonder people aren’t using them).

I finally get out of the place (after forgetting to bring a shopping bag of my own and thus having to juggle my cereal box, laundry detergent, and grand bag of potato chips with the other groceries) and I make it to the porch of my appartement unscathed.

That is, until I realize that I do not remember the code to get in, and I have left the paper with the Palayrets’ number in my room. Parfait. I walk around the block. No other entrance. I try using the internet on my phone to access my e-mail to get their telephone number. Doesn’t work. I try getting one of the program director’s numbers from another student. She doesn’t answer.

Finally, at the point at which I just start dialing random numbers to find out the code, Monsieur Palayret calls from the top window, “Maggie? Quel est la problem?” It is inevitable. Like the stupid foreigner that I am, I tell him that I have forgotten the code to his appartement, I don’t have any of their contact information with me, and I cannot get in.

Picking up at 20 years old and moving to a new country? Yeah, it’s all fun and games.

*You can’t actually talk like this anywhere in Paris without getting thrown in the dungeons.