host family

The couple I live with are very nice, helpful, and laissez-faire. They are Catherine and Alain, both physics professors, though I’m not sure if he actually teaches or just does research. Their apartment is small but comfortable, and I adore their cat.

You will get a good picture of Catherine if you imagine a laid-back, female, French physicist. She is unprepossessing but not meek, thin with dull brown hair, always taking off and putting on her thick-framed black glasses, and usually has a distracted air. I see her in the mornings before I leave and usually in the evenings; she always has a smile and is willing to help me with whatever I need. I think she likes to cook and tends to do so in her own sort of thrown-together, earthy fashion, but I haven’t had much of her food yet. She is also the president of the building’s committee, though one would hardly think it of her. I was surprised to learn she (and another resident who happens to be our program director) actually campaigned for the position. From the snippets of French I’ve heard about this situation there has been some drama going on with the committee and everyone is glad Catherine has taken over.

Alain is what I can only describe as a jolly nerd. He is really funny, and I’m sure would be more so if I understood more French, and he has a distinctly nerdy sense of humor. For example, he was making jokes about Victor Hugo’s private life at dinner tonight in its historical context. He likes opera, which I appreciate, and plays it when relaxing at night sometimes. He is average size, with grey physics professor hair and pointy glasses. While Catherine is okay at English, if I am really having trouble understanding or expressing something I go to Alain because he is very good, even if he doesn’t use it much.

Catherine has a son, Aurélien, whose room I now occupy. He has his own apartment, and since he moved out Catherine has been taking on study abroad students. I met him tonight, and have officially decided I have a giant crush on him. He is about my age, though Catherine says he’s a little older, quite good-looking with the same gorgeous blue eyes as his cat (weird). It is Aurélien to whom all thanks (or well-aimed kicks at the shin, as the case might be) should go for today’s entries, because he fixed my wireless. We spent a while fiddling with the settings on my computer before he said, “I theenk I just have to poosh ze booton on ze…what do you call eet…modem.” And then it was fixed.

He also lives in the 13eme, but closer to the Seine, near the National Library (or as he said, “You know, ze, big, big, building by the reever!”). I think he’s a part-time university student, but if I got my French right he’s also a babysitter. Anyway, boys who can fix my computer, are très beau, have French accents, bookshelves full of Molière, Hugo, Camus, Aristotle, Dostoyevsky, Poe, and many others, and model planes hanging from their ceilings are okay by me. Also there are many board games in his room, one of which looks like a French version of RISK and another is called Mephisto, which I can only assume is an exciting game revolving around the devil, who has stolen one’s soul, and one must get it back by strategically moving little pieces around the board to outsmart him. At least, that’s what I imagine it is because of the name.

So, Aurélien is pretty cool and it would be nice if he continued to come around. I want to get into some French music and I think he’d be helpful with that.

Albé (or Albais, Albet, I don’t know) is Aurélien’s cat. She was a birthday present and is particularly attached to him; she was very sad when he moved out. So now she hangs out in his old room and adopts whoever is staying there. I like her a lot as she is an amusing mixture of friendly – she’ll follow you around asking to be pet if no one has been home for several hours, and will install herself on my bed with the intention of getting attention – and stand-offish – she will get mad after a while of mewling at you and hide. I think she’s a ragdoll, or a mix with some ragdoll in it. She’s really gorgeous, with crème and brown long, soft fur and blue, blue eyes.

So that’s my host family. I like them quite a bit; they’re kind and helpful and would be amusing if I could only understand what they’re saying.