First time meeting my house mother

The bus dropped us off in one of the parking lots of the university I will be studying at. I’ll go into it more in a future blog, but I am studying at the international school within the university. I was so nervous to meet my house mother. I didn’t begin to feel nervous until we arrived in Rennes. I had only communicated with her through email before my arrival about what I like for breakfast and if I should buy a winter coat in France. She told me that there’s a huge winter sale going on until February 1st, so I waited to by my coat here.

When I first got off the bus, I stood next to a couple girls in my group. A woman came over to us asking who Nicole was and I raised my hand shyly and said moi (me). I was pretty quiet because I didn’t really know what to say, but Bri (my friend from my school) helped take over the conversation. We found out from the assistant director that our host families (familles d’accueil) were friends. Most likely going to have a dinner all together at some point during the semester. We ended up standing together and talking for a couple minutes until we got the rest of the paperwork from the assistant director. I didn’t say much, but I made sure to open up more on the car ride home.

I noticed her car was a European brand. One of the first differences I noticed in France in contrast to the U.S. were the different car brands. There are also a lot of mopeds/scooters. (High key really want one. Hopefully one day!) I talked to her about my family, what colleges my cousins go to, and what my cousin’s majors are on the way home. It wasn’t until dinner that I found out about her family. She has three children, two boys and one girl. They each have two children and her daughter has twins! Her daughter lives closest to her, but she’s two hours away.

For dinner, she made pumpkin soup and a quiche with ham and cheese. Also, she made an apple tart for dessert. There’s usually always a side salad, bread, and cheese. It was all so good. I’ve now eaten cheese from a sheep. Sadly because we ate the pumpkin soup almost every meal I started to become sick of it. I’m taking a pumpkin soup hiatus for right now. I was kinda surprised she put the T.V. on during dinner the first night. It’s become more normalized, since it gives us something to talk about sometimes. It definitely gave us something to talk about the first night, since it brought up American politics and the president of the U.S. It’s perfectly normal for the French to talk about politics at the dinner. I’m just happy we share the same opinions.

I noticed right away my house mother has a very strong French accent, but I’ve gotten used to it now. The way I would describe it to my friends is that “Elle est très française” (She is very French), but I don’t say that with a bad connotation. It only means it’s going to be a challenge in the beginning to communicate. It’s sometimes difficult to catch everything she says because she’s speaking very quickly and because I have a small american accent it’s difficult for her to understand me sometimes as well. Every now and then there are a few words I don’t completely understand. Hopefully by the end of the semester I’ll be able to catch all of the little things she mumbles to herself while watching T.V. Most of the time they’re pretty funny.

The Apartment: Details and Style

The apartment is on the second floor of a four story apartment complex. The apartment is a nice size for two people. My room and her room are on either sides of the apartment. Because the floors are made of wood and they creak I can hear the upstairs neighbor, but I’m used to that because I lived in apartments for most of my life and rarely notice it. There are a lot of large windows, so it’s really nice and bright when the sun is out. Also, there are shutters to help block out the street lamp lights at night. There’s a palm tree outside one of the windows by the dining area, so it gives the illusion that it’s warm outside. It’s been in the low 40s and 50s (Fahrenheit), but there seems to be a lot of palm trees planted throughout the city.

The kitchen is practically it’s own room with a door you can shut. The living room and dining room are the main space with an open floor plan. The furniture is very sleek and stylish to me with a leather love seat and a red and grey single person chair. I mainly sit in the single person chair while she sits on the love seat. There’s also a glass coffee table, but most of the other furniture is made of wood. There’s a lot of blues (teal/turquoise) and reds throughout the apartment. I really like the teal color of the toilet seat haha.

The toilet has it’s own little room like at the hostel, but this time it’s within the actual bathroom. The shower has a glass door and there’s no tub. The first night, she showed me where I can keep all of my shower supplies under the sink. She also had some left over shampoo and conditioner, shaving cream and a hair mask for me. I bought my own shampoo and conditioner later on.

She also has a few paintings on the walls in the main area. Two of the biggest ones are pretty abstract with one being a town in the distance but the paint strokes make it blurry with a dark red background. The other is of two girls in white dresses but the painting style is similar to the other and the girls are facing away from you with a light blue background.

The Rules

She doesn’t have a lot. She’s pretty lenient.

1. After I shower, I have to use a water scraper to get off the excess water, so it’s easier to clean.
2. Leave the towels in the bathroom and hang them on the back of the door.
3. If I shower in the morning I can’t close the bathroom door all the way or the sound of closing the door could wake her up (Her room is right next to the bathroom and the door is pretty loud) I just can’t shower super late.
4. I can only use the trashcan in my room for paper (I have a little plastic bag I use for trash)

My Room

Every famille d’accueil needs to provide a bed, a dresser/closet, and a desk for their student. I have a full size bed, a wooden desk with a glass cover, a cute little bureau with three drawers and a mirror on top, and a rack for clothes I want to hang. I have French doors, but the glass is textured and there’s an extra set of blinds so you can’t see into my room. This is actually funny to me because at home, I sometimes stay in the office where the room has French doors too.

The color scheme is white and purple with one purple accent wall. I have a spotted design on my bed sheets. Even though the comforter is really thick I needed an extra blanket because it can get pretty cold sometimes. I’ve heard from the others in my program that their homes are always really cold. I’d rather it be cold than hot anyway. There’s a little bed side lamp and a white paper mache sphere around the ceiling light. There’s another small lamp on my bureau. She also gave me a woven container (pictured below) where I keep some head bands.

I don’t have an actual laundry basket, so I use my suitcase as one. There’s a washer and dryer in the kitchen. They’re kinda tiny, so I can’t wash all of my laundry at once, so I choose what clothes I specifically would like for the next week. I accidentally put too much into the dryer once and it took all afternoon to dry. It was fine for the wash, but some of my clothes’ material was too thick.

A normal evening with my house mother

I feel like my house mother (ma mère d’accueil) and I found a system that works for us really quickly.

Whenever I would get home at the beginning of the evening, I would work on homework until dinner. I had a two week language intensive course in the morning (I don’t know if I found it totally intensive, but it kept us learning more about French culture) and then after lunch we sometimes had something to do at the university with CIEE. This will probably be the same way once actual classes start.

While she prepares dinner, I set up the table with two table cloths. She has two trays she can choose between to bring out the dining materials. She uses it to bring out the plates, utensils, bread basket, and cheese. She doesn’t drink a lot of water, so she fills up a big dark blue bottle that looks like a wine bottle that I can use to fill up my glass throughout dinner. I set up the rest of the table with the plates and utensils while she finishes up cooking.

Once we’re done dinner she asks whether I want cheese or not. At the moment we have Camembert and fromage du Chevre (goat cheese). I love the fromage du Chevre. I just eat a small sliver before dessert. I was so happy to learn that yogurt is considered a dessert here. I mainly eat yogurt for dessert at school in the states, so I was being French without even knowing it! Other options are fruit or things she decided to buy or cook in advance.

When we are completely done eating, I take the tray with all of our dishes back into the kitchen. I volunteered the first night to always do the dishes. She has a dish washer, but that’s mainly just for the plates and sometimes the utensils. Most of the time I hand wash the utensils and the platters she used to cook.

We end the night usually just sitting together watching the T.V. I sometimes ask things if I’m fully watching, but most of the time I’m working on homework, the blog, or texting on my phone. I hope to watch more with her in the future, so we can have discussions on what we’re watching. As I write this, she’s been watching some crime movies.

There’s a French singing show called “N’oubliez pas les paroles” (Don’t forget the lyrics) and we’ve been watching it before dinner almost every night. We want to see if this one girl, who has more than 400,000 euros, makes it through to another round.

A Walk in the Park

Last Sunday my house mother asked me if I wanted to go to a park not far from the apartment. The park has a pool and a sports complex. While walking to the trail you can see animals like sheep and deer in an enclosed habitat. While on the trail you can see some horses. The trail is a little wooded and because it rains here quite a bit, the trail was a tiny bit muddy. My house mother had the good idea to bring an extra pair of shoes to change into after the walk.

I chose to write about this, because I wanted to express how I knew it would be a good way to get to know my house mother more and how it’s a good supplementary activity to get more French input. We talked about cultural differences between Rennes and where I live and go to school in the states. We talked about the cabins and the camp within the park. Also, we talked about dogs because we saw a cute French Bulldog puppy. I found out her little poodle was stolen a few years ago! C’est terrible! (It’s terrible!) She doesn’t have any pets. Some other familles d’accueils do.

If your host family invites you to do something, I highly suggest doing it. Every host family is going to be different. Sometimes there is only one mother like in my case or you could have two parents or sometimes a family with kids. There’s also a chance another student from a different program is in the same house as you. You are placed into these homes based on CIEE’s survey. The survey helps CIEE focus on whether you have dietary restrictions and what your medical history is. For example, this helps them make sure that they don’t place someone with asthma into a family that smokes. There are also parts of the survey you can fill out about your personality and describe what you would like to get out of the experience living with a host family.

So far things have been pretty good with my house mother. I’m definitely not as nervous to talk to her as the first night. I know I still have a lot to learn from her and her from me, but our relationship seems to be pretty gratifying.

For my next blog I will be sharing the different kinds of food I’ve tried so far in Rennes and what food Bretagne (Brittany) is well known for. 🙂

À bientôt.

– Nicole