Ben Winckle - Live & Learn France (Gap Year Program)
Tue 23 Jun 2009
Ben Winckle is currently in France on the Live and Learn France program, which is a Gap Year program offered by SEA's sister organisation Student Placement Australia.
The Live and Learn program gives people between the ages of 18-25 the opportunity to live with a family for 1, 2 or 3 months in either France, Germany or Brazil. In exchange for a room and meals you provide the family with 15 hours a week of English tuition, which could take the form of helping the kids with their English homework or talking with the family in English for example.
If you're thinking of taking a Gap Year and would like a steady base to help you get settled in overseas before you head off on your travels this could be a great option for you! Or if you found out you weren't eligible for an exchange program but still want to head overseas after school Live and Learn gives you this opportunity.
Ben recently wrote to us to give us an update on his progress with his family in Alsace, in northern France. He wrote:
“I've been doing the Live & Learn (France) Program for 3 months, having the time of my life with my host family and learning so much about the language and culture that I expect to have a headache as a nightcap. I'm living in a tiny town called Sundhouse (soon-dooz) with a population of about 2000, in Alsace. The Alsatian region is in the Bas-Rhine Department on the French-German border which is in the NE of France next to the snowy mountain region (but thankfully not on it). There is a beautiful microclimate created by the mountains either side of this area and we are currently kicking off summer here after a spring that lived up to the legend of the romantic Country France lifestyle.
The only way I can describe this village is as a celebration of Disney movie villages! Everybody knows everyone else, kids are always playing in the town square while their mother is taking some home grown veggies to her neighbour's house, someone is always airing out a bed sheet from a second storey window and the local pub is packed at every hour of the day with middle-aged men sporting rosy cheeks and noses. Having said that, the country life can also be very thrilling: I've been exploring caves, riding on quad bikes, go-karting, horse riding, mountain climbing in Switzerland and even got to visit the EuropaPark Theme Park in Germany.
Paris stopped my heart. It just intoxicated me the moment I walked along the streets. Or at least, that's what it felt like to me. I stayed in a youth hostel from Sunday the 29th to Thursday the 1st in a very central position and, if I caught the Metro (Tram) Line, I could reach anywhere I needed to be within 10 mins. The public transport system was just so organised and so reliable, I was very impressed. I started off by visiting all the major sites, the typically touristy monuments, parks, museums etc. and although the idea of visiting something "on the surface of France", too often done, may put some people off, I could never have imagined what seeing, climbing, touching the Eiffel Tower could do to me! I started daydreaming at the second level getting lost in the infinite landscape. I got shivers done my spine admiring the architecture of the Notre Dame and there is no way anyone could do justice to explaining the sheer enormity of the Louvre than compared to seeing it for yourself.
Having said that, it was the backalley nurseries, the myriad of op-shops, the cafes which left you feeling broke just looking at them on the Champs Elysèes where you could Parisian life for what it really was. I took so much pleasure in just ordering un jus de fruit and sitting back to watch three women have a passionate discussion, flailing their arms and raising their voices as if they were about to start a pub brawl but leave the best of friends.
Fabiola, my 6year old host-sister, being half French and half Italian is the most patriotic, opinionated firework of a girl I've ever seen. She's a pretty tough block and rarely cries except for that time she hit her head on the marble table, and I reckon that’s a pretty fair call. My host-mother Giovanna is very family-oriented treating me just like one of her own. Guy, the host-father is really keen to improve his English, despite knowing about as much as I do French (very, VERY little). I feel very welcomed here, but am also terribly homesick about now. I'm rapidly finding I feel more at ease in the city than in the country, as aesthetically pleasing as my village may be. 3 months seems to have been an excellent length of time for me to travel, and the opportunity to live with a family has given me the 'locals only' perspective I had hoped for.”
Cheers,
Benny
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