Curious - when you travel, how do you find families to live with? That sounds really fun.
- On week 3 of a (hopefully) ~9mos trip, in Chiang Mai.
- On week 3 of a (hopefully) ~9mos trip, in Chiang Mai.
In Brazil I walked in and made gestures that I wanted to learn Portuguese (they refused to speak English, even though some of them could, a little). The conversation went on like that and eventually one of the staff took me on a bus to where I would stay with a family. I ended up with a relatively wealthy family, others at the same school were in totally different environments.
One thing I hadn't accounted for was the paranoia of that situation.
My host family were really nice, but early on we had a discussion about how much people earned in the UK (with the aide of a translation dictionary). The next night I heard them arguing, I could tell it was about money, I was fairly sure it was about me. I recorded a little snippet of it and when I played it for a friend later when I got back to the UK he said they were talking about footballer's salaries :)
At the time it made me really self-conscious. It's tough when you're all alone and you don't have anyone to talk to in your native tongue. Leaves you entirely alone with your thoughts.
I want to end my trip by spending 3 months in Spain learning Spanish. I'm thinking of Valencia because I think it'll be fairly warm there even during winter months, it's somewhat central, I hear it's fun, and everyone speaks Spanish... Barcelona would be a really fun city to live in also but I think it'd be better to be surrounded 100% by the language I am learning instead of Catalan :-)
Before now, I've only heard of living with a foreign family as a thing younger students do. I'm approaching 30... would it be weird to do at this age or is it normal?
Totally normal. My wife and I were 28 last time we did it. The language school would put you somewhere appropriate I would have thought. Last time we were with a lovely lady in her 60s.
I think there is "authentic" Thai here and in Bangkok; there is still a strong majority of Thai's / SE Asians in CM and BKK. Certainly some areas of the city more-so than others. And you can find the places where they frequent...
CM is a pretty cool and affordable place. The weather is much nicer than unbearably hot Bangkok, you can get a nice quality single AC room with a queen size bed for ~$20/night in the center of town. Authentic meals cost $2-$3 (the Western-style / tourist meals are more like $5-$10). It has pretty good wifi - much better than BKK. And they have a familiarity with dealing with Westerners; though, it is ironic that Thais are particularly bad at English. I hear the worst at English in SE Asia, despite it being the biggest ex-pat and tourist country. People are pretty friendly up here too.
There is a whole industry around this. Take a look at http://www.homestay.com/, it's like Airbnb except you book a family, not just an apartment.