I had the amazing privilege to spend two weeks living in a French family recently. Because I attend a French school this is part of the program. It is, without a doubt, an experience I will treasure for the rest of my life. Besides living with a French family and experiencing the culture my friends and I did a lot of other fun things. I wanted to tell you about my experience, from my point of view, because it is so special to me and because France is, after all, the capital of Fashion.

Living in a French family was very interesting. What amazed me was that I never felt nervous about anything. When leaving Sweden (my home country) to go to France I was quite nervous because I knew nothing about the family I was going to live with nor did I know anything about the daughter, that was my age, that I was to spend most of my time with. Once I arrived in France, along with the five other kids in my group from Sweden, and met the girl I was to live with I did not feel nervous at all. I felt like I fit in right away. Her father came and picked us up and even sitting in the car, alone, with two people I do not know and hardly can understand I felt ok.

The biggest difference I noticed was the difference in what food they eat and how their portions are. For breakfast they normally eat quite little, a small sandwich or a bowl of cornflakes. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day; they have an appetizer, main course and dessert. The appetizer is something small like soup or a small salad, the main course is really big (basically the equivalent of a dinner meal), the dessert can be anything from a yoghurt to amazing bake goods that France are famous for. Dinner is normally smaller than lunch. It may include an appetizer but the main meal is not as big as lunch and of course, a dessert. The dessert is very famous in France because they are used to finishing their meal with something sweet. I still have not figured out why French ladies are so skinny. I did not see a single fat woman during my whole two weeks there.

The atmosphere in a French family is absolutely wonderful. Just like any other family in the world the children have a lot to do; after school activities, homework, places they need to be driven to and picked up from (the parents always drove the kids, they rarely took buses anyplace) but there is never a feeling of pressure or stress around it. My family had three kids, the girl my age, and two younger boys. There was this feeling that there was a lot to do but it was done without stressing or getting worked up about it.

During the weekends we could go out with our correspondents and have a little fun. We went to a bar/bowling alley several times which was a lot of fun. Now, I realize a bowling alley does not sound like it is such a fun place to hang out at, but we made sure it was fun. As I mentioned there was a bar and my friends and I had decided we were going to make sure we got to go up and dance on that bar (as in the movie Coyote Ugly). Before going home the first evening we had managed to dance on the bar! It was such an amazing experience. The bartenders were so nice to us. During the second evening out we asked if we could go behind the counter and help the bartenders mix a drink, which we got to (after desperately explaining what we wanted to do in horrible French mixed with some English). That too was an amazing experience and just all round fun (which I am sure you can imagine!). They were very friendly towards us.

Once our trip was over and I came back to Sweden things just felt so wrong. I wanted to go back to France and kept finding all kinds of flaws in my home country. I guess this is quite a normal feeling. A week has passed and I still want to go back. I keep thinking back on the days in France, clinging tightly to the memories desperately fighting not to forget a single detail.

All in all, it was an amazing experience, the people, the food, the bar, the fun, the parties – everything! Two weeks pass by so fast; it felt like it all just flashed by in the blink of an eye. All the French people in shops were so friendly and the bartenders were so nice to us by letting us do, literally, what we wanted to. “Home sweet home” really does not apply anymore after experiencing France.