I have been a francophile since middle school. Maybe it was beacause it seemed classy to me, and as a kid, I liked "classy things". (My dream car was a Jaguar XJS and my dream home had two wings.) They dress well, they eat well and drink good wine, and the accent is all class. I took French during junior high and all through high school.
My mother has a friend from high school who went to university in France, met a man, and just stayed over there. I met Jill, Raymond, and their children a couple times when Jill came back home to see family. They were classy, interesting, and I had a bit of a crush on their daughter.
Before my junior year in high school, I had an opportunity to spend several weeks in Moscow. The cost of that trip would be almost as much as spending a year in France, provided I had a place to stay there.