In the depths of winter, I finally discovered in me

I got picked up today from my home stay by a French student by the name of (which I will reveal despite ~internet anonymity) because his name is too interesting to not reveal, Aubin de Belleroche. When I told my host parents who was picking me up, they immediately started poking fun at his name (oooohh he's a noble! un baron!!) But yeah, apparently anyone with a "de" in their name is a noble.  Anyway, A picked me up from my home stay and showed me how to get to the Université Bordeaux III (a 40-50 min. commute D:) It's all fairly simple, but I still got lost getting home, had to ask 2 people to give me some directions. >< Everyone I asked was extremely nice about it though. 

By the way, off tangent, but my home stay is amazing. By which I mean the apartment is amazing. My host family lives smack down in down town (fairly close-ish to the Grande Théâtré) where they own a printing shop (the Imprimerie). I think they might own that whole building area of the print shop, since the apartment is 2 stories big and lies right on top of the print shop. My own room is pretty big, there's a full sized bed and a shower & sink within the room. It's probably the size of my living room in my Berkeley apartment. 

The strange thing about French people is that their bathrooms are just essentially rooms for toilets. There's nothing there except for a toilet and toilet paper. The sink is pretty far away from the toilet too, since it's in our own rooms (which is down the hall). The third story, where I live, is shared by A. and J. (both French high schoolers), we each get our own room and showers. The second floor is where my host parents sleep, and also where the kitchen and living room is. The whole second floor is probably bigger than my Berkeley apartment in itself. I was expecting a pretty dinky room, so I'm very pleasantly surprised. 

My family is pretty big, there's 3 other students who live with me (all are French, however, and speak next to no English, sad to say), and last night, their youngest son (R) and his fiancé came over for dinner as well. Needless to say, dinner was extremely awkward for me as I could do nothing but politely nod. It lasted around 1 to 2 hours, but it felt like I was in the middle of a foreign movie with no subtitles. I couldn't follow the conversation at all. Also there was an embarrassing situation where they asked me about my siblings, of which I responded that I had one, who's age could or could not be 22-23. They wanted to know for sure so they asked me when he was born, but as all French learners would know, saying dates is actually...quite...difficult. >> Well, let's just say the table was laughing for quite a bit, before we got down to the actual date that my brother was born in. At least it was amusing for a while! I have to say that it was a bit lonely at first (without internet of course! since the password they gave me didn't work for the longest time, which was again an awkward conversation with one of the guys), but it's gotten slightly better. My host mom is gone till 8pm working, and when she comes back she just makes dinner (which is served at 9pm). My host dad is gone from work (at 8am) until dinner time. And A & J. have their doors shut every minute they are indoors. Which kinda sucks because I would love to interact with them more. But alas, doors shut and language barriers make it a teensy bit hard. We are all "tutoyer-ing" though which is good. 

Today was an improvement though, as after dinner the guys and my host dad started playing around with the new iPad 2 that they bought. Where upon they showed me Rémi Gaillard, a French comedian/humorist who plays pranks on people (like recreating Mario Kart on a real road in France). And also we talked about Gray's Anatomy, and how I like House better (called Doctor House in French, and also a very popular show). Mostly, I chat with my host mom while she makes dinner. She corrects my shitty grammar, and we got on the topic of politics and Mitt Romney and how he may or may not be a Mormon, and how that could help him win because Mormon's are wealthy.