Trip I'll Never Forget

This was probably the one of the best decisions I've made about how to spend my summer. I've always wanted to visit France and learn the culture by living there and this was my dream come true.

My host family was awesome. I lived with a mom with two children. She was extremely nice and spoke slowly to me at first so that I can understand. During family meal times, she would always try to start conversations with me and ask me about my day. It was difficult to talk to her in French at first but it got better day by day and I learned a lot about French culture and living in Arles as she has been living in Arles for awhile. I loved playing with the kids as well. They would teach me random words of objects and animals in French while playing with me.

The staff for Arles program was amazing as well. They were extremely supportive and informative. I asked them many random grammar questions since I wasn't taking a grammar course on the program, and they would help me out until I would understand. They also helped me a lot with pronunciation and made me feel more confident when I was speaking French to the natives.

I loved Arles. The town is absolutely beautiful, with old Roman architecture and cultural sites all around the town. People are very nice too. I visited Paris for a weekend and that really made me appreciate people in Arles. French people in Arles speak slower and are a lot nicer. There were French guys once in a while who would cat call and yell out things on the streets and that made me feel uncomfortable at times but I didn't feel like Arles was a dangerous place where I could never walk anywhere alone (doesn't mean you should walk around alone at night though just in case...). It's small and everyone knows each other.

The courses were not intellectually challenging, especially because I don't normally take any humanities/social sciences courses during my school year (I'm in the engineering school at my university). So this was a different experience and most of all, I learned a lot about French culture in the classes which helped me to understand lots of cultural differences as a foreign student living in a new country. The professors were enthusiastic and extremely understanding, especially on the difficulty of understanding and communicating in all French.

The weather in Arles was always sunny and beautiful. There were couple days that rained but it's not like Paris... It rained everyday that I was in Paris when I visited (4-day weekend). Tons of mosquitos at night though... so don't forget an insect repellent!

I loved Arles and I would love to go back again sometime in the future. I would definitely recommend this program. You won't regret it!