Feels Like Home (Almost)

Today was a fairly normal day. Woke up, talked to my boyfriend, spent time on facebook, went to class, did homework, ate dinner, and now I'm here.

However, I am now beginning my reading of the first six volumes of the Sailor Moon manga series in French. Turns out my host family's son was a huge anime fan which is lucky for me, as my host mother told me I could read whatever manga and watch whatever anime I could find. She wishes he would come clean it all out anyway. They even have Spirited Away! In France it's called "Le voyage de Chihiro."

Dinner also ended up being a pretty fun time. It was just me and my host father for dinner tonight, so we ate in the kitchen and watched what I highly suspect is the French version of The View. The best part wasn't the food, but the fact that we had an actual, substantial conversation. We talked a bit about wine and how it's hard to get used to if you don't have the habit. Then we started talking about cultural differences between Americans and the French. Mostly why the US has such a huge problem with obesity, as his daughter spent a year and a half in Atlanta and was shocked by how large people are in the states. Apparently, French people have the image that all Americans eat giant hamburgers and drink three liters of Coke each day. While this obviously isn't true, obesity and related health problems are an issue for Americans.

There are a lot of reasons why these issues are so prevalent in the US, and my host father admitted that a few of them exist in France. For example, junk food is really cheap to buy or easy to make, so one sees the lower classes as having a higher rate of obesity than people who have a larger disposable income. It exists in the US, in France, and my host father said that he noticed it in Australia as well. There are cultural differences as to the causes of health issues in each country, but what I find interesting is that we were able to find similarities as well.

I also managed to be productive today. Finished all of my workbook exercises for my French as a foreign language class on Thursday. Also, I read all of Macbeth, which should have me covered for the next two weeks giving me plenty of time to pick up a copy of Midsummer Night's Dream.

I was also complimented on my good vocabulary and handle on the French language. All in all, it's a good day.