When France lives with Italy, Germany, Russia and Tunisia...

... it makes very interesting conversations, delicious dinners and crazy quarrels!

This year and for the very first time of my life, I share a house with housemates. When I was at uni I was lucky to have my own appartment and when I moved to London, Sydney and Dublin I lived with local families who had a spare room for me. I really loved staying with families because it enabled me to immerse myself completely in the country's culture and to get to know the habits of a typical family from there.

But this time was a bit different as I didn't have to look for accomodation – it was provided. The college has a spare house where they host Fulbrighters or Teaching Assistants every year. So I'm sharing McGuire House with Sara from Italy, Tatjana from Germany, Anna from Russia and Haithem from Tunisia. And I think all agree on the fact that we've been particularly lucky because despite our such different cultures and ways of life, we get along very well and we do pretty much everything together... We work together, we complain about our immature students together, we travel together, we do grocery shopping together, we go for walks together, we cook together (yes we do manage to find dishes that everyone likes >>> PASTA), we share bread and peanut butter together and we watch movies together on Sunday nights. We get along very well and barely ever fight (except when the Italian and the French are in the kitchen cooking together hmhm...)

By now, I know how to swear in five languages and even though "fanculo" and "scheiße" come out quite naturally, "putain" remains the best word ever when you're mad...

Also, did you know that Germany doesn't have speed limits? That Russians are as much tea consummers as British people? Or that breakfast isn't a big thing in Italy and that they usually only eat biscuits and drink espresso (which to me is really surprising when you know how important food is in Italy)? I didn't know either before meeting my housemates so that's another great thing about living with people from other countries – you learn a lot from their customs and habits and how life is there. For instance Anna never really feels cold outside and she's always the one wearing the lightest outfits (teeny tiny mini shorts in the morning brrr) because she was raised in freezing Russia and for her, Northeastern American weather is nothing ; Sara can't stand American coffee because she has the best coffee in Italy so she bought a 'moka pot' (typical Italian coffee machine) and expensive Italian coffee – she refuses to drink American coffee and Haithem hates BBQ sauce, he finds it too sweet and weird as he is used to spicy ones in Tunisia.

But in spite of our differences, we understand each other because we are all here for the same purpose (teaching our languages) and we all love travelling and learning about new cultures. It definitely has helped us get closer. We have become a real family and all of us going separate ways for Thanksgiving this week is really weird as we always do everything together and we've never been apart for more than a couple of hours. One week will be long! But I can't wait for next Sunday when we'll all be back with all our stories to tell from our adventures!

I am really not looking forward to when we'll have to separate for good in June... But the great thing is I'll have family to visit abroad! And good news, we still have six months together... so to many more day trips, long breakfasts and dinners at home, movie nights, giggles in the living room and as Haithem would say, "we come together, we leave together".

(We really need to take nicer pictures though)