When I signed up to stay with a British family for a weekend, I had high hopes. I expected everything: a hot meal or two that didn't come out of a microwave -- like mine usual do -- a plethora of new British phrases and, most importantly, a bed with springs that don't cut off my circulation.
I was estastic when I learned I would stay with a family in Lincolnshire, which is an area of countryside in the Northern part of England. It was exactly what I wanted: one weekend away to see a part of Britain that didn't include an overwhelming number of buildings, underground stations or outfits in display windows that cost more than my entire wardrobe. I packed my backpack with as many layers as possible, as my host mum advised me to do, and left with the content idea that maybe wherever I was going had more sheep than people.
Even though I expected everything, the everything I got wasn't what I expected.
At the train station, I met Caroline, my host mother. Though I had left the train with a dozen nervous queries, they evaporated when I recognized that there was nothing I could fear in this woman. She had round glasses and an easy smile. When I went to the right side of the car -- thinking it was the passenger's side, as it would be in America -- babbling on about how I couldn't remember the last time I rode in a car, she simply tapped my arm and smiled, "Wrong side."
Later I met her foster children: two boys named Dan, 17, and Ashley, 13. Like my brother Robert, who is also 17, Dan is obsessed with his Xbox. More than that, they both tell the kind of funny jokes you hate, but you have to laugh at. The way he teased Ashley reminded me of the way Robert -- lovingly I'm sure -- tells me I'm his favorite big brother. I couldn't help but smirk as I watched their mini-fights.
Likewise, I couldn't help but think of Ashley as my temporary replacement for my littlest brother Lee. I don't think he knew how to react to me at first: he didn't speak to me much, and when he did, he abruptly told me I couldn't be American because I wasn't a gamer. Later, when I refused a snack, he said, "You aren't like any other Americans I've met. They ate all the time."
He started to warm up to me though. When he played the old shoulder tap trick -- where you tap the shoulder furthest from you of the person beside you -- I simply turned around and smiled at him, "You know, we do that in America, too." By the end of the weekend, he didn't mind letting my inexperienced fingers hold his playstation controller. Besides, half of the entertainment of playing with me was watching my three lives disappear before I even figured out how to aim my gun.
My favorite was Roxy. A family friend of Caroline's, she was on a vacation from boarding school and came to stay for the weekend. A replica my 14-year-old Jordan, I fought a losing battle all weekend trying not to call her the wrong name. Like Jordan, she has entered the stage that no teenage girl can be blamed for: she was self-conscious and just wanted people to like her.
Mortified when Caroline let her borrow a coat that hung like a deflated hot air balloon over her tiny frame, Roxy tried to convince her that her light jacket would suffice in below freezing temperatures. She got up early to straighten her hair and spent many precious minutes on her make-up, applying mascara with an ease I still can't master. Yet, just like Jordan, she is hardly a barbie doll. Smart and funny, she kept up with the boys' banter and rolled her eyes at me every now and then as if to say, "Why do we even listen to these guys?"
And Caroline had no problem treating me like a daughter. Whether she was asking what I'd like her to make for dinner or yelling from the room below me to be careful with the water when I was taking a shower, I knew I momentarily had become one of her children. As if it were only a question of tying a knot betweeen two pieces of thread, she gladly bound me to the long string of people she already cares for. When I left, I fumbled with my words: there was no way I could express my gratitude.
I went to Lincolnshire wanting a home and all of its simple amenities. I never thought I'd get there and find the most real kind of home: family.
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