Things aren't always as they seem

If there's anything I'm learning incredibly quickly in France it's that things aren't always as they seem, and though this might seem very obvious and you might all be thinking "well no duh Sarah, moron" I feel like the whole idea of it takes a brand new meaning in France. Maybe if I had actually read up a little more on French culture I would have known this sooner, but since I didn't...it's literally a whole new world everyday for now.

For example, my host family. For the last....week/2 weeks I've been UNGODLY intimidated by them, particularly the host-mother, since every time I'd talk to her it would seem like I was not doing something right or something like that. In addition, she would never ask Betsy and I if we wanted to eat with them, or even how we were, if we made it to school etc. While other people's host families seemed like they wanted to know absolutely everything about their lives, if things were okay, and fed them on a regular basis etc. These differences sort of surmounted in my mind and created this image in my head of my host-mom being this terryfing french woman...

Luckily, however, Betsy and I put on our big-girls pants and decided to just try and talk to our host-mom and see if we could eat dinner with her every Thursday night. Which brings us to the present evening.

You see, we didn't specify a time for dinner, so first Betsy and I were both just upstairs doing homework and hanging out waiting for dinner, when we heard the dinner bell. Yes, that's right, the dinner bell. I didn't think they still existed either, but they do and are used in our house to indicate that it's time for the young ladies living upstairs to come downstairs and eat. Who would have thought. After this we go downstairs and have this SUPER GREAT dinner with our host-mom, which was made up of this potato/ham/onion/cheese/omg delicious casserole in a cream sauce (served with salad, of course) followed by sweet bread with apples put in a caramel/sugar/sauce of heaven.
And the best part?!
We found out our host-mom doesn't dislike us! She just didn't ask us to dine with her because usually American students don't like French food (too much sauce or something?) and she was very friendly during dinner and we are no longer intimidated by her. Definite Success!