Assignment 3- Sarah Clark- France

This summer, I spent 3 weeks living with a family in Deauville, France. My correspondent then came to America to live with me for the next 3 weeks. From this trip, my French greatly improved, and I gained the experience of traveling outside the United States for the first time. However, after 6 weeks of being with the same person practically all day, I grew tired of my correspondent. I was getting annoyed with having to come up with activities for the 2 of us to do in the U.S. every day. This revealed to me that I need alone time and space. Nonetheless, I am extremely grateful that I got to take part in the exchange, because I learned how to quickly adapt to new cultures and environments. For example, my family didn’t eat dinner until 9:30 every night, and walked almost everywhere. Although I grew to enjoy these customs, for the first few days, I had trouble adapting. However, now that I have this experience under my belt, I believe I can carry over what I learned in France to my educational environment. In my French class, I explain to our teacher what the experience of living with a family in France is like, and how this compares to America. Although my teacher has, of course, been to France on several occasions, she has never stayed with a family. Thus, she is intrigued in the exchange, and hopes to enrich the cultural section of our curriculum with the customs I discuss with her.