I opted for telling the story of a fresh experience which only dates back to August of 2003. Summer vacation: Destination London / Duration 3 weeks. To avoid getting bored after a few days, I enrolled in an advanced & business English course (morning classes).

If I have to say only one thing that was extraordinary about the school, it’d be the degree to which it was cosmopolitan. I’ve never been in a place in which I heard simultaneously speaking so many languages. In a class of ten, there were ten different nationalities, luckily most of which I had never had the chance to interact with through my job.

I’ve made the counting…Today, I have precisely 153 nationalities left to meet to be able to say one fine day, “I’ve met with every possible nationality living on the surface of earth” and I’m seriously eager to achieve that record.  

During my stay, I lived with a lovely host family (Mum, Dad, daughter aged 19, son aged 15 and cat). At my arrival, I had a little gift for them, traditional Moroccan biscuits. I knew it was a sure way to quickly break the ice and indeed it proved to be.

Socializing with the parents was easy, in fact nearly every evening we spent hours talking after dinner, seated in the garden. The subject of discussion could differ from art, education, travel to politics and hot news of the moment.

Conversely, with the children it was a little complicated, as teenagers, understandably enough, they were more into staying alone in their respective rooms.

I had to show I cared about them, and that my point wasn’t at all to intrude in their privacy.

The girl was very reserved, I knew she was preparing for college admission; she was very much preoccupied with institution choice, decisions such as living in or out of campus, etc. Having gone through all that myself before, I subtly shared with her my experiences and gave her advice that she found extremely valuable.

The son was different, typical football fanatic, he just didn’t feel spending time together was worth it. Until the day he saw me wearing a T-shirt with the face of his favorite rap singer, he came to me and started the conversation. It went so well that the same day he invited me to come into his room and play video games with him and his sister. I felt it was really cool!

I only realized the importance of what’s been achieved when Penny the Mum; confessed to me that during seven years she’s been receiving international guests, never before has she seen her children literally adopting the guest. I felt that even more the day I had to leave, when every member of my host family had a lovely present for me.

Stepping out of the house, I had tears in my eyes…