My host family are very nice. In fact it is just a couple whose children have left home, and another student, a 19 year old girl Carolyn from Maryland or Delaware or somewhere in America. Her accent at the moment is terrible, but she is here for four months and she is young, so I know that very soon her French will be much better than mine. Galling*. In my class of ten at the language school, the majority are Europeans who are onto their third or fourth language, so I cannot be smug when on the odd occasion I get something right. Interestingly, most French people don’t bother learning another language either. We speak only French here chez nous.
I am very well looked after here. The food is a real highlight. Dinner is always at least three courses, and with a little wine. They only drink red, which is like kryptonite for me, so I have been very well behaved. I managed to track down a bottle of NZ red in a local shop – a Marlborough pinot – so we drank that last night. They either liked it or were being very polite.
I also bought them a coffee table book on New Zealand, in French, from a very good local bookshop.
The worst part of staying here is the bed. It is a futon. I hate futons with a passion; it is like sleeping on concrete. Well, they were invented in a country that also had stone or wooden pillows so I’m not sure the Japanese really have a good insight into what makes for a comfortable night’s rest.
The duvet is also far too hot. I spend much of each night trying to expose as much of my body to the cold night air as is needed to bring my average core temperature back down to something more physiological, after sweating through the first few hours in a deep sleep. I’m not terribly confident in my ability to address this issue with my host family. If I start telling them that I am hot in bed it may lead to confusion.
I did eventually have success buying the little figurines (santons) I was looking for yesterday. In fact, they are far less appealing, and more lumpen and misshapen in practice than I remember. Perhaps I was harsh to blame whoever it was that accidentally lost them when we moved house. However, I have new ones now, and even if they are imperfect, they will still bring back memories for me. I don’t have photos, as they are all wrapped up – but here is a similar one I found online.
*heh