If you’ve ever seen the movie, “L’Auberge Espagnole” then you’ll perhaps understand a little of how my life is right now…
I’m currently living in France as part of a program through the French Ministry of Education. I am here to teach English to French high school students. The program does not provide housing.
Because of that, I was a little nervous, but in fact I apparently am very lucky.
I followed all the guidelines for what to do before my arrival, including contacting my school and the teacher who is in charge of me. It is through her that I was able to become settled so quickly – where as many of the other assistants are either still looking or have just found their living situations.
In any case, it turns out that I am living with the two other assistants from my school.
Here is the part that resembles the movie: we are all from different countries. It may not have been the Erasmus program that has brought us together, but it is none-the-less a similar situation.
In our apartment, we are an American, a German and a Spaniard, and yet our common language is French, not English, Spanish or German, so that’s what we use together and it really is interesting.
We all get along well and are able to understand each other most of the time. They both speak/understand English at least a little, but it is rarely used…
Being in this kind of setting, even though it’s only been a week, I’ve really started to notice just how “American” I really am, and how being German and Spanish are different from me and from each other. I’ve also re-acclimated myself to speaking French, so now I think in French quite often and when I try to speak English, it comes out as Franglais.
