More Reasons Why I Love My Host Family

Now don't get me wrong real family, I love you too. It's just that you're not really here at the moment and thus I am unable to provide my multitude of readers with amusing familial anecdotes. But as Michèle and Alain seem to be constantly adorable, they will just have to be the subject of my stories for the next few months.

1-We spent the night of Mardi Gras eating beignets and debating what the lumps of fried dough resembled. Alain made fun of me when I tried to explain that one looked like the bagpipes, but he can't really talk because his top suggestion of the night was one that (somehow) looked like a penguin dancing with a flamingo.

2- Last week I asked them where I could find a good used bookstore because I was looking for Madame Bovary. The next night when I came into the kitchen for dinner, I found an old copy of the book sitting at my place. "What's this?" I asked. "Alain brought it for you from his father's house," Michèle replied. "For you to keep."

3-Being that they are both huge amateur Egyptologists, I have been thoroughly overwhelmed with homemade travel movies, photo albums, and suggested sites to tour. Alain has also equipped me with a few things he finds necessary for Egypt: a wind-up flashlight to look at the engravings better, several pages with pictures and names of places I must visit, and a really cool belt that has a zipper on the inside to hide drugs or money or something worth stashing.

4-I walked into the apartment after class today to be greeted by an amazing smell emanating from the kitchen. "Mmmmmm," I sighed as I passed by the door. "It's soap," Michèle said. "Really?" Laughter. I don't know why she finds it so terribly funny to mislead me like that. Turns out it was our dessert: a lemon meringue tart that was most delicious. At one point she said that it was for me, but I couldn't understand the rest of her sentence. Why? Because I'm going to Egypt tomorrow? Because she knows how much I love desserts? In fact, it doesn't really matter why. It was incredible all the same.