Free Trip to Israel

early_college
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:34:06 +0000

I felt as though I’ve already stated why I would want to go: to learn more about Jewish culture. But Holocaust history is obviously my main interest.

France was a complete disaster. At first, I was suppose to go to South France (Toulouse) but my family had to cancel because they were moving. They ended up finding me a family at the last minute. The family and I had zero interests, it was a terrible fit. The family lived in a small village of 99 people in Picardy (2 hours north of Paris), but the first week and a half I was in Brittany by Carnac. Their grandfather had a vacation home. The father picked me up at the airport because he wasn’t going to Brittany and he brought me to the train station. At first, I wasn’t going to have a chaperon, but then they told my parents someone was going with me on the train. Well no one ever did. We were racing to make this TGV bullet train. He didn’t even let me call my parents to tell them I arrived b/c he had a meeting to go in the city. As soon as I got on the train, it started moving and I had no idea what to do. He never told me I had an assign seat as normal trains in France had open seating. I had taken 2 years of French before going, but I could only describe myself in French and not have conversations. I cannot even understand anything in French. My teacher stopped teaching us speaking after first semester of French I. French has always been more about grammar and writing in my school. I did receive a 95% last semester of French of this year, but it was just because my teacher was easier.

The TGV was 3 and a half hours. No one spoke English. A nice mid 30 year old Frenchmen helped me to my seat as one could tell easily I was a foreigner. All I knew was that is was the 5th stop. I could not fall asleep because I could easily miss my stop and then I would be screwed. I never slept on the plane or anything because I could not fall asleep. When I got there, I met the kids. They were all boys: 16, 15, and 11. I was a year older.

In Brittany, the mother and the younger brother and his friend lived in a flat while I lived with the two brothers, 16 year old cousin, and friend in a town house. The mother never checked on me ever. She could not even speak English. The 16 year old host student and his cousin spoke good English, but no one else did. The father spoke good English as well. He told me I had a “horrific American accent the first day I met him.” As soon as I got to their townhouse, the kids asked me what I thought of a song which was about getting high and drunk. I do not drink or do drugs, so I was def startled. I cried the first night. I was very overwhelmed and it was just a bad fit. I tend to get along better with girls as well, they almost gave me a family in Lyon with 9 brothers but I told them I like girls better.

The French teenagers were very perverted to say the least. They were playing with themselves in front of me the very first day. All they did was talk about sex as well. The cousin told me he wanted to sleep with all the women in the world, but in different words to say the least. They smoked weed, cigarettes, and hookah. They drank a lot of everything, except beer. God, I will never drink whine ever again. Each day they went to the beach and tried to find girls, but who were 13-15 years old. It was awkward to say the least as those our children who are my younger brother and cousins age. At night, they would go to the beach and smoke weed and drink with the new girls they met that day. I had never even seen weed before going to France. I have friends who smoke it, but I never put myself in situations where I would be in the same room as people smoking it. I am pretty liberal, but I have conservative beliefs about drugs in general. All the teenagers smoked cigarettes in France. I never felt so alone in France in my life, all they did was ignore me at night when they drank/smoke. They would sit in a circle and just pass the vodka/whine around and the blunts. Even the 15 year old brother was smoking. They kept on pressuring me to do it, I felt very uncomfortable. They went skinny dipping in the ocean as well. I did do some things I shouldn’t have, but I don’t live my life with regrets. I wanted to tell the organizer of the company, but I didn’t want to get the kids in trouble. The cousin who supplied the weed said that his parents would hang him from his balls if they found out he smoked.

The family was a super conservative, elitist family. The kids would get drunk and go to mass the next morning which was personally frustrating and a slap in the face to God. A drunk French kid told me he wanted to ***** on the American Flag. It was very anti-american the whole time, the stereotypes were very true. They thought France could beat America in a war, ■■■■■. They thought I was shy at first when I am quite the contrary in my normal setting. The kid went to a private boarding Catholic high school in Rouen. They looked down upon public school kids like myself and the middle class. They lived in a mansion which was hundreds of years old. The Nazi’s lived there during WW2. They had very different ideas about the Nazis, which I took offense to. When we went back to their home there was nothing to do. When we went to the Omaha Beach, the father said every tombstone should have crosses and that there shouldn’t be any Jewish stars of David at the American cemetery. They knew I was half Jewish. His grandfather was racist and the kid admitted it to me. Mass was exactly the same, but in French. I saw no holy water or kneeling though. I went to church twice in France, but I went for the culture experience. I haven’t been to mass in America since my confirmation in May, 2010.

I did get to see actual WW1 trenches at a Canadian memorial. I saw a lot of English cemeteries from WW1 as well. I took the train with the kid and we went to Paris/Versailles by ourselves. I know there not as safety cautious as Americans. My mother would never let me go to NYC by myself. I really didn’t see as much as the other kids who went to other countries and traveled all over France. They had a much better time. I had no internet access even though I brought my laptop in Brittany. The kids cooked and cleaned, but were still very immature. The kids hobbies were hunting and surfing, we were complete opposites. The French were very big on their WW1 victory. There were English memorials in every village. However, I felt as though there wasn’t much compassion towards French Jews.

I went bike riding with the kids one day and they left me and I got lost in the middle of no where. I was told I was stupid many times. I didn’t know any European presidents and the father was like “My 11 year old knows all of them.” The brother denied me on facebook. I added one French girl who I met and she made fun of my all over her wall. It was disgusting to look at. I tried to hug the 11 year old goodbye and he said he hated me. Outside of Paris, no one spoke English. My French never improved because I never even had the basis of the language to begin with. I met some nice English girls at the beach in Brittany who were my age and a 5 year old English boy who I babysat for his nanny. I met some nice Germans who spoke much better English then the French. I feel as though some people have that foreign language skill and I don’t have it. I met two nice French girls, everyone else was very rude to me. I felt if I was a girl I probably would have been liked more. I saw no Americans for the most part except for in Paris. I saw Harry Potter in France with no English subtitles which was quite the experience. They use sugar instead of salt/butter. All they eat is Nutella and they don’t eat peanut butter.

Overall, I hated my France trip. I will never step foot in that country again. My parents had never even been to Europe even though my grandfather was born in Sicily. I saved up all my money and my Christmas/b-day gift to go there and it was just atrocious. I was very polite and nice to the whole family. I should have tried and spoke more French, but like I said earlier, I had no understanding of it what so ever. I know not all French are like my host family, but I would still never go back after this experience. When I cleaned for them, all they did was make fun of my work and make me do it over and over again. I tried to go in the program with not expecting anything because I do tend to have high standards, but there is nothing else I could have done differently. I was really looking forward to it because I spent so much time and energy into this program. The kid was never coming back to America, it was just a one way thing. I would die if I had to spend another 3 weeks with him.

BTW, growing up my Nana always celebrated Hanukkah with us. We always had a menorah up and some years we lit the candles.