Life has been a little surreal lately. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been a real person, more of a couch potato on break from school waiting to go abroad. All the days have been mashing together and if you asked me the date, I would laugh at you. Needless to say, I’m ready to go to France. Not physically of course because I’m too scared to attempt fitting all my clothes in a suitcase, but mentally. All my relatives kept asking over the holiday if I was ready to leave, and I always replied with the same, “Yes of course, but it still doesn’t seem real to me.” I couldn’t believe I was going to Aix-en-Provence, France in three short weeks. I had been planning this moment since freshman year, yet it still didn’t feel tangible. Slowly though, as I crossed things off the to-do list (the visa, the phone, the money), it started to sink in.

I checked my email (I know, rare for a student on winter break) the other day to delete some of the hundred junk emails I got, when I came across a name I was unfamiliar with. I opened the message to see that it was from my host family. I was a little confused since I hadn’t gotten any information from my university at the time, but that was only for a fleeting moment. I believe I actually screamed and jumped off the couch. My dad, who was startled by my strange non-couch potato-like behavior, asked for an explanation. It was my host mom and she gave me an introduction to the family I would be living with for the next five months, and she seemed just as excited as I was.

Good news! I heard from my host family.

This settled a lot of nerves. I struggled deciding where I wanted to live in France. My first instinct was with a family, but I had heard so many horror stories from fellow students not enjoying their stays. But, I took a chance and, by the looks of the email, it seemed like it is actually going to be amazing.

Brigitte, the author of the email, told me about her husband, their 15-year-old daughter and their cat. She told me she has been hosting American students for ten years and she told me she would pick me up at the airport (what a saint!). They seem like everything I could have asked for. Immediately, I emailed her back with a little background about myself, while daydreaming about my life with this family. All the terrible scenarios I was given escaped my memory to make room for the possibilities. I can help her daughter with her English studies as she helps me with my French. I can listen to Brigitte tell stories of past students. I can walk the cobble-stoned streets to class in the morning.

Suddenly everything seems more tangible. I just needed that first interaction and now I can picture myself in living and studying France. Now I just have to figure out how to pack, and how I’m going to lift three suitcases up the stairs to their walk-up apartment.

Location: Clarks Summit, Pa