Email from France!
Saturday, 9:31 AM PST
I don't know what prompted me, but I decided to check my email. Voila! An email from YS. He was with his host family. They had taken a 4 hour train ride from Paris to Saverne, and everyone was really tired. The email was short, but great.
"Well Im here with my host family. Its a bit akward because with the languague barrier; but I think it will get better pretty fast:I just got out of the shower, very refreshing!!! I still havent figured out how to charge my phone or whatever (he means add minutes to it), so if you know how just send me an email. Other than that...the plane over was long and the train here was about 4 hours, and pretty much impossible to sleep on. I will write more to you all when I get more time! Love you all, YS. BTW, this keyboard is really hard to get used to :)"
I just love technology! This morning, two more emails! I am pasting them "as is" because the lack of punctuation and misspellings are explained by him in the emails.
Sent at 11:45 PM PST: "well last night was interesting.....lol im off to the class in like 5 min or so, so this will be quick. my family has 3 boys, 2 are twins (not identicql) qnd one plqys drums in a band....all of them are right around my age. i guess you have to be 18 to drive in france they speak german just as well as they do french because it used to be german before WW2. well, ill try to call you guys soon, i hqve to go get a card with K and J (the TA). love you guys, YS PS....can you tell im having a hard time with this keyboard? lol i will have to send you a picture of it"
And then at 4:38 AM PST: "well, the first day of class was fun. we talked about everyones host families and whatnot...très intéressant! the oldest boy, je pense 19 années, asked if i wanted aller avec lui et ses amis ce sour pour avoir une bière. (the oldest boy, i think 19, asked if i wanted to go with him and his friends to have a beer.) j`ai une heure avant je vais aller à la centre ville pour une promenade autour de Saverne avec la classe. (I have one hour before i have to go to the city center for a walk around Saverne with the class.) je pense que je jouerai Xbox 360 avec Mark (je ne sais pas the spelling of his name) maintenant (i think that i will play Xbox 360 with Mark(??) now.) Au revoir et je vous aime tout, YS PS: i will probably write some french in the emails just to help practice...but not every email also, forward this to everyone....and send me their email addresses"
I am thrilled that he is with a family of boys his age. It sounds like this will be very fun for him. I wish they were with a family the entire time, but this part will last only 2 weeks, then on to Strasbourg for two weeks in a hotel, then Paris for 6 weeks, also in a hotel, then Nice, and Avignon. No other homestays, sadly. The nice thing about the homestay is that they clearly have internet, which will likely change once he is in a hotel. I'm going to take full advantage of his easy access to email while he has it. Hopefully, he'll send some photos soon. Gosh, I wish I was in France! It sounds like he's already getting used to speaking French, which is great. He was so concerned about what he felt was his lack of fluency in the language. I kept trying to tell him that once he was there, immersed in it, it would be a lot easier. It appears that is the case already.
Tres bien!
