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Hey,

So I know that last blog post I left it hanging and that this next post now would be on the next part of the Paris weekend of last week. However I can't do that right now, it's no excuse but a legit reason why. I'm actually going home in a few weeks, if not this week then next week. It's nothing to do with my host family though partly by default. However this choice is not my own but in a way it is. Circumstances being what they are, my family is going through a terrible ordeal, a loss of one of their members so I'm needed back home. It's a horrible feeling being helpless and alone over here when something as abrupt and unforgiving as death interrupts our seemingly normal existence. It makes me wonder for the first time, why I thought going abroad alone was the best choice. This was a fear of mine in the back of my head that someone would die while I was away. As if I had any control of that if I stayed there.

It makes you remember what's importance, and in a way forces you to face your own demons. And it's hard and my mother is taking this, well the whole family really is taking this extremely hard. It's like no one can get past that thick layer of shock as the person in question who passed had just come back home after being on the road for work. Anyways, until such a time when I can get my grief under control to the extent where writing on this blog no longer feels like a chore I will not be updating it.

Until then, Sorry.

Paris, France 2014 (Part One)

So it's Monday night, and I've justt come back from my Paris Trip this past weekend. I actually got back this morning around 5:30am but who the eff wants to type then? I could go on a Tirade discussing the bus itself but I'm already annoyed iwith my life so I am not going to go there. Let's see, starting with Friday.

Friday we went to the Trian station at 10, our bus was early so we were there on time lol. We left at 110:45pm, and rode through Belgium to get to France. The Eurolines bus didn't have outlets on there, but everything else worked fine. No wifi of course. Okay so it's literally a 5 hour journey we end up in Paris around 6 am. We're confused and unsure what the hell to do. We go to check out at Mcdonalds to use their wifi, but it doesn't open until 7:30m. Okay, lemme just say, French people in the Customer Service position are some rude mofos. I'm getting that out the way now. We ended up buying an all day Train pass for 3.75 euros, sweet deal and we still had our stuff on us.

So then on our first trip on the metro, we got on a train, but someone had thrown up on it, ad it was so disgusting. I cannot be near puke period. So the Paris trains(some of them anyway) were connected like the cars but not onected to where you can go to another car if one was full. You had to actually get off the tain and hurry up and run to the next car to get on. We did that, Turzia one of the girls I went with both made it on the train, Claudine however, did not. 

It was a moment where we were freaking out, before that fear shed way to like like uncontrollable explosive laughter from how funny it was. Claudine was slightly tramatized. So it's saturday morning and after we are all accounted for, we made the decisions to go look at some sites before 11am, that is when we could check into our hostel and drop our bags down.

I'm really tired. Emotionally speaking that is, so I will finish this post later.

Well, not something you hear everyday!

Hey, so I'm super tired at the moment, but I'm not planning on sleeping for another few hours so I know I've got some time to blog then. Bascially what's been going on with me since my last post is nothing much. Today is November 11, which is Veteran's Day in the states, and St. Martins Day here in Holland. Bascially the children go around to the houses sing songs and get candy, like Halloween slightly. Anyway that is not the reason for this blog post today.

I don't know if I ever said it but my Host dad is a Lord. Like an extremely high up person and in the Royal Family. Okay, take that in for a moment. Once you get passed that heres the next part. Tonight at dinner(and still here!) he's having an annual business dinner with all the important delegates in Holland(which are his colleagues and stuff) as well as Mark Rutte. And he is the Dutch Prime Minister! I could have met him if I stuck around earlier but I don't want too, it's just too weird for me. And he's still in the house now. They had a caterer and wine and it was just in a frenzy today.

Anyway that is all, I'll have more to talk about this week coming. I go to Paris on Friday with Claudine and Tirza.

Halloween 2014 (In Holland)

So as you know this past Friday was Halloween, and as my host kids are used to having American Au Pairs they and the kids down the street as well as a few others have adopted this tradition. It's not a huge thing like back home but a few houses do do it, for the kids. This picture to the left were spider cookies, made from oreos and pretzels.

                                                                                          Over here you have witches broomsticks, made from Pretzels and String cheese lol.

These treats were super easy to make, and I find it more annoying every time i here the phrase. You're ready for motherhood....no the hell I'm not..and moving  on lol.

 Each of my host kids had two friends, except for my 4 year old, and after I had fed them all I had to make a variety of Halloween treats with them, while the moms( I kid you not) oohed and ahhed over it as we made them lol. I have a few pictures but like I said my camera was crapping out on Friday. I didn't know that Sunday it would flash it's last photo...damn lol 

These here are skelton bones, made with prezels and mini marshmallows. It had some white chocolate covering but my host kid picked the rice chocolate and it didn't come out right. It was good though. 

These two photes are the eyeballs or ghosts on sticks, made with the food coloring pens and marshmallows and Pretzels. 

 This freaky picture here is my Host kid Wies, decked out in her costume. She went in case you couldn't tell as a Scary Clown.







All in all it was a pretty fun night, and they loved getting candy of course lol.

What I have been up too??

Okay, I bet your wondering where the hell I've been. I can explain? I havent' done anything worthwihile mentioning since London. Because the bank charged my account 67.50 euros and depleted my account. I don't know if you know but London is very pricey! Those pounds are costly the exhange rate sucks for euros I don't even want to imagine how dollars would fair there. So since England I've been slumming it, going to parks after dark with a friend of course, I know totally unsafe, but whatever. And now it's November and I'm nearly broke again. The life an au pair, well you're living a very poor life indeed. Anyway, I'm not talking about that right now.

So I don't have many pictures this post because my camera of 8 or 9 years finally died on Sunday. Right when I had an Au Pair outing that my agency and Host mom made me go too. I had to spend 85 euros of my 300 euros this month to buy a new one as I am going to Paris next week. I want pictures...like seriously??? It's supposed to be delivered today.

So on Sunday I went to Nijmegen, which is somewhere in the middle part of Holland, I live in the south part so it was 2 hours by train, however I had to change trains like 4 times, so in actuality it took like, 4 hours..it sucked. Let's see there we had a lunch and I found to my utter horror that my body has an issue tolerating salt at the momnt. Like seriously they had a pumpkin soup there and it was way to salty to mee so I didn't eat it. In actuality it was fine, but my host family uses no salt, and no pepper as I've stated before so as you can see my issue. When I go home, it's gonna suck in that way anyway. No way in hell do I want to stay longer here..lol.

So anyway, after the lunch we had this tour, given by two guys on the history of WW2. I still need to go to a concentration camp, but I digress. Anyway, they mostly talked about bombings...I'm more interested in the personal stories as were the majority of the girls, so it was a bust for me. It's a black page on Dutch history I was told, because back then, Dutch police not Germans turned in the Jewish dutch people in holland...how could they do that? I can't judge, I know but that's horrific. I'm not surprised, because there is a lot of things that are slightly taboo here.

Take Sinterklass for instance....visit this link, pay attention to the paragraph Zwarte Piets..which translates to Black Peters. That is all I can say about that, without touching a nerve with some people, myself included.

  http://alexlaybourne.com/2011/11/12/sinterklaas-%E2%80%93-a-history/

Until next time, which may or may not be next week for Paris. 

On a side note, I almost forgot, Halloween with the kids...actually I'll make that a seperate  post until then lol

London, England, Part Two

Hey guys so its the second part of the blog post from my London Trip!!!

I still can't believe that I was there, honestly I've wanted to go for so long it almost feels like a dream because I've had the dream of going there a few times in my life. So there is that. Let's see where did we leave off hmm??

Okay, so I was telling you how much of a tourist I had been on Saturday, I was really exhausted during all of that and trying to make the most out of my time there. After touring in the bus for hours on end I went back to Victoria station and took the train to Bayswater, I didn't know it at the time but the bus I was on ran RIGHT by my hostel, I was so bummed, I could have saved 5 pounds! Anyway, I went to my hostel  which turned out be a trip in itself. I didnt know how to get there obviously so I had to ask people, one girl was super helpful, she's like, "you're American what are you doing here??" lol...only to tell me she wanted to go to California, and i was like, "whats there" lol. It was just funny because everyone wants to go there, and everyone at home wants to see England. 

Anyway my hostel  was near Kensington Park which like I said it a famous park there as well. Anyway I made myself to the hostel an I had booked for a 6 female dorm, I know because I didn't mind paying the extra money for the added comfortably I would get with all girls. However when I get there I wa told there was a computer error of some sort and I ended up in a mxed room.  This is my room below by the way, it was empty when I took it. 

Of course how my life tends to work out, there was no other girls in that room, it was me and like 8 other guys. 7 of them were french and just made it so awkward how open they were with everything. I went to the store to get some food, this was my dinner that night. Cottage pie was beef with like onion like in it, I didn't see them or really taste them and the cottage part was mashed potato. It was okay, I ate it, but would I eat it again...maybe actually lol. That drink was so good though.

B before that, I went back into the room and One is sitting on the bed in his underwear on his computer, another is lying in the bed with his hand down his boxers, another one was bare assed naked in his bed, I though he was asleep but he wasn't. He at least half covered himself when he saw me, and the rest of them were shirtless and in boxers laughing. It was so horrible I hated it. I quick got my Notebook as my Nook was nearly dead and walked out of their to the kitchen where I watched/fell asleep to a documentary that was playing on a tv in the kitchen. I felt so antisocial moreso then normal. The Hostel I stayed at was call Gallery Hyde Park Hostesl. 

To the left is the Hostel Kitchen, there was another part but that was the sitting area..

And they did like a pub crawl but after my day and hat I was dealing with I went to bed a 7pm. And yes I slept with one eye open, I now fully understand that term. Like I woke up at every little sound, and they were loud and rude and didn't care tht there was other people besides them in the room. I was very happy to check out the next day. I left at 9:00am, even though check out was at 10:30am lol. I rode the bus to Victoria Station not wanting to walk around with my pack all day again and left it in their luggage facility they had. Basically a man checks it in and he watches everything it was awesome!

I then went to go check out the like shopping center and I'm glad I did! I found this bag for 10 pounds that has London on it, I have one from Amsterdam, Germany, Den Haag and now London. Something to remind me of my travels when I go  home. I also went a bought some Souvenirs and stuff.  Some things I really wanted to do like this,. There was a Harry Potter Studio tour that I had really wanted to do but the way things worked out I wasn't able too. Like I needed a mastercard to buy the ticket and I only had an dutch Maestro card so that didn't work. When I wa s finally able to get one, the tickets were like totally sold out for the studio tour. So I was super depressed. I'm hoping to go back in December for Christmas. I have a friend who lives in Leeds. So I can stay with them for the rest of the week, but spend the first Day in London and do the studio tour.

I know this is totally random  but when my day was over, I went to the mall to eat dinner at KFC which is cheaper there then in Holland or home lol. So Like I said earlier in the blog post this year Holland KFC doesnt have short thighs, this one did, and i got really super  happy about it.  They still served fries with it, but I go over that bit...though honestly who the eff though Chicken would go good with fries???  Maybe it's just mee, but I don't like my chicken with fries.

I did notice some similiarities and differences between London and home though. I loved seeing English everywhere I really missed seeing that this year as n Holland everything is in Dutch. Like this gum extra it as 0.48 pence which is honestly cents and I opened it expecting sticks of gum but it wasn't lol. It was little pieces it just struck me as strange lol.  

So lets see this is the picture of the park from where I was writing in my notebook about my day there.   

 And this last bit is me in the Kitchen part of my hostel eating by my lonesome. I don't look sad but I was super tired.   So yeah thats the end of my blog post, I'm gonna go meet the Au Pair who replaced Marcy. We will see how it goes!

Excerpt from an Au Pair in Holland

And heres and exterpt from an Au Pair in Holland.

I just realised that my last few blog posts havve been about my experiences I've done so far and not so much about the Au Pair part of it. I now understand why when I have read other Au Pair blogs, the childcare bit tend to fade to the background, its because your subconsciously trying to block it out. And with good reason. This morning, my host mom comes downstairs, and I've started to see a pattern when she does this. The house keeper, cleans everyone's room but my own, which I don't have a problem with. However certain times she'll have the housekeeper clean my room, or vacuum it as if I can't do it myself. Which I do might I add, just not up to her standards. Anyway, he'll do it and report all that he's seen in my room back to her.

Good thing I have no incriminating things, however as you all know I just got back from my London trip and I went straight to work yesterday and then went straight to swimming after, when would I have had the time to clean up. Because after swimming a friend of mine wanted to go out for a coffee and a Au Pair 'chat' which I will explain what that is later on. I digress. I had no time, because when I got back, guess who went to bed right after that post last night .this one right here. So on the floor of my living room part, I had dumped everything out my backpack and onto the floor, as I needed the pack for Swimming. Yay for versatile things! So theres a mess there, and then theres my room, also a mess because I had to search for my swimming stuff, the only upside was that I had done the dishes. Whew!

So he reports back to her, and she goes on this mini rant this morning about how my room looks worse then a truckers stop. I could take a picture of it, but honestly it doesn't look so bad. Which is saying a lot as their room is usually horrible, train wreck wise. I had been brushing my 4 year old's hair and feeding her at the same time so my facial expression was as blank as they come. And she hates it, it's my defensive mechanism, I don't like to attack back, so that's better for everyone. She wasn't amused. Anyway when her rant is over she runs out of steam and is like, finally leaving the house and is like..”Bye,” she usually says the english bye for me, so I didn't say anything, but then again neither did anyone else lol. Until finally she's like, “Bye Toni, Wies, Floor, and Claar directly so you just had to say it.

This is the thing Au Pairs come to know, it's the way of life, no type of privacy. I have a friend whose host mom searches her stuff, and treats her like a maid.  Is it right? Hell no, but she doesn't know what to do, she's extremely passive, I thought I was but there is like no fight in her. Okay the Au Pair “Chat” is a coffee date thing where Au Pairs get together and discuss and compare host families mostly Host parents and the like. It's also a full out rant/ getting frustrations out over the host family if they've wronged you in any way. We needed these twice a week or more meetings, because honestly no one else can understand it until you've been an Au pair.

Being an Au Pair isn't easy, there have been days where my host kid, one in partucular doesn't want to go to school so she'll fake sick. By refusing to get dress and saying her stomach hurts. Guess whose day is ruined now? And then after all this when the parents leave, she'll just veg out on the couch and watch tv, eating things that no 'sick' child would eat. 

I.E Tosti, which are grilled cheese sandwiches, cookies, juice and just wanting to play, which is sucky because if I cater to her every whim by the time the other two come home, I'll be exhausted. And then you see she wasn't really sick just pretending but guess what it doesn't matter, your plans are effed. You would think the parents would stay home for this kids if their sick, but you miss the point of the Au Pair, that's your job. You see your host kids more then they see their parents. And that's happened a few times this year, which sucks, because in the morning hours when they're in school I run errands, clean up, and how can I do that then when you're host kid is 'faking' sick. It doesn't take much for them to say it. I've had my host kid go, I'm not going to school today, and she didn't.....that would have never worked with my mom.

Still think you want to become an Au pair?

 I'm gonna go lie down for a bit, I've done the dinner and grocery shopping and bread run for the day, and the kids are in school. Its a grey day to match my mood, I'm gonna lay down. I'll be back later for a post detailing the rest of that Saturday for my London Trip. I tried new things!!!

London, England!!!

Hey guys, man it's been a whirlwind of a weekend let me tell you! So as you know this pst weekend I was in London and it was so Amazing! I didn't get to see and do all that I wanted too, but that's okay. Wanna know why it's okay, because I plan on going back in December for a week! 

Okay, I'll spend maybe a Day in London then and then the rest of my time in Leeds. But I digress that is for another blog, this blob post is about my weekend.

So it started on Friday night when I . went to the train station, and then to the bus station which is ontop of the train station lol. I waited for my Eurolines bus for 8:15pm, and then got on it. I managed to get my own seat and keep it the entire way! It was awesome, and heres where it gets not so awesome. I had my Nook Tablet with me, however in all my haste and trying not to forget anything I forgot my charger,.....

I was so bummed, but I didn't realize that until maybe 3 hours into the trip when I realized that I needed to charge it but the charger was nowhere to be found. And the Nook charger isn't available anywhere in Europe, I know because I checked only on, as the item is sold exclusively at Barnes in Nobles, which is an American Bookstore.. So with that in mind, I shut off my music and put away the Nook(which really blew as I had bought books specifically for the long ride there)

Anyway I made myself try to sleep, and since I had my own two little seats along with a neck pillow and blanket, I was more or less set. I didn't sleep very good, but anyway not that it matter, we stopped a lot of times. It was a different experience this time as the Driver of the bus spoke English, British English to be exact. And the door was on the left side instead of the right, and the driver's seat was on the right instead of the lelf. It was an eye opener.

I had read about London, and even seen on movies and stuff about England but being there is a different story entirely. So Because we were going by bus, we had to take the ferry, but before we go there we went through UK customs and Border controls, and they asked you all types of things, like what was I planning to do there, why did I want to come there, and etc. What the hell was I doing in Europe and just totally nosy. Anyway, I was approved to go through and I have a stamp on my visa part of my Passport that says I'm free to come and go for the next 6 months lol.

After customs we ride into the ferry, where we then get off and head upstairs, it was around 3 am at this point, and instead of the livelyness and all, everyone was decked oout on the benches, seats, chairs, tables all sleep. Lol, it was funny, and it was nice to see. Inside the Ferry, there was Video Arcades, a Casino, Bars, stores, Food courts, Family Lounfe area, and more. It was so cool.

After the ferry ride which was 90 minutes but I spent most of it curled up like a cat in a window seat. We then had to rush back to our coaches, but I got slightly confused thankfully, I found us though!

We then were back on our way and I dozed off again, I woke up around 5:00am looking around to find us in England somewhere, they're was double Decker buses and just a lot of people. By 5:30am we arrived at Victoria Coach Station and then I trooped out with everyone else. When I got there it was still pitched black. 

And I didn’t know where to go so I just went back into the coach station and curled up in a chair and fell asleep. I dozed off an on for the next 3 hours and finally when it was like 9am, I got up and made my way to information who was finally open and got directions to the bus stop for my bus.

I bought a tourist bus ticket deal, one ticket good for 48 hours. And bascially saw the sights that way. It was a hop on hop off tour, and it was really fun. However I still had my backpack as I couldn't check into my hostel yet so that bit sucked, I did get to see the London Eye and Big Ben that was amazing. I loved it. 

I rode the Tower Bridge and I saw the London Bridge, it was just crazy the amount of people there. I took pictures of course, I'm just not in any of them, because it as depressing, I went alone so I didn't want to ask random strangers to take a picture of me. It was just super sad. I wanna go back again, but this time with a friend.

Anyway, that's enough of Saturday for now, I'll be back tomorrow to continue it. Enjoy the pictures I took.

It's almost here!!!!

It's finally here, I'm going to the Train station in about 15 minutes, my bus leaves at 8:15pm but I wanna be there early to get a good seat. Not to far in the back and not to far in the front. I hope a lot of people aren't on it, either way I'm gonna be a seat hogger lol. Anyway, I've got a dozen or so books downloaded on my nook and I'm ready for the trip, with some drinks, and a bit of food. WHen I get to the station I'll get more.

This time Tomorow, I will be in England, Finally! That right there, signifies that I can acomplish anything, it was always a dream to go here and now it's happening. I'll keep you updated tomorrow as this bus I have now has no wifi. I know I said I would never travel with Eurolines again, but when you can find an extremely cheap bus ticket round trip to London for 63 euros...you suck up that pride and use it lol. Until then

Munich Germany Pics!

So I know this is late, to be honest I just havent felt like writing anything, ror doing anything. The mundane daily tasks are really stretching me thin. This past week went by super slow, but that could be the fact that I'm forced to throw myself out their and make more friends, as all of the ones I met are gone home. I'm not gonna dwell on that, but living abroad has opened my eyes to an assortment of things. For instance, I never thought that I would miss something as simple as grocery shopping in America. It's not the size of the store honestly, I got over that though, it's easier here in a way.

  But the issue I'm having is when I ask for help to find something, the answer they give me is a blank look, as they don't understand that word and I have no clue what it is in dutch. The other day I took my 9 year old to the store with me, to look for Parsley. Now I know what it looks like, but it had a few other plants/veggies that looked like it so I asked her what it was in dutch. She wasn't sure but gave me the dutch word(which turned out to be correct but we ended up asking a woman to clarify lol) So far I've got by this year by finding everything myself, or bringing my host kid Floor who loves grocery shopping with me. She knows where everything is. But like today I didn't have her, so I like went down every bloody isle, just to find dried fruits! And no, it wasn't by the blloody nuts.

 Okay, that's over, lemme tell you about the city of Munich. I didn't have like a tour I had Marcy and Camilla and they were more interested in the souvenirs shop or the Beer halls. So I'm just going to show some pictures.

 On another note, my swimming lessons are really going well, I can swim across the pool, underwater, and kinda dive lol. The class yesterday she made us swim underneath this floating like table in the pool. It was scary slightly at first, because right after the fear of drowning is gone, the fear of not being able to get to the surface because something I blocking you comes out...therefore it goes back to the fear of Drowning lol. 

Anyways, I've made a lot of progress, definitely going to have to look up swimming classes when I go back to the states. I hope I can find some like my host mom found here, she pays 37 euros a month for my lessons which are 45 minutes long every Friday.

Octoberfest 2014!!!!!

Hey there guys!

I know this is a bit late, but I've been exhausted after Octoberfest, and needed to sleep a bit extra before I could even attempt to write anything about my experience. So lets see, we left off I explained a bit about Friday and Saturday but Sunday was when Octoberfest started for me. We chose to go from Sept 20-23 as the 20 was the opening day but I didn't go then, it just was super tired only having slept 4 hours in the bus ride.

We all ate breakfast(which was leftover dinner btw lol) and then dressed in our Dirndls before we walked 20 minutes to the train station, took the train for like 10 minutes before getting off and walking about 10 minutes to the big festival grounds. I took a TON of pictures so I'll show you a few here . 

 

My friends had gone the previous night and had scoped out the beer tents, which lemme tell you right now...the word tent is misleading. The 'tent's are like these HUGE Resturants/Assembly rooms. I The picture to the left is one of the tents, but thats not even taking in what the hell was behind me!  It's intense and a lot of people, but I did have some fun. We got slightly tipsy beforehand before we went though, where we were then served this and that glass was huge!!!

 It's a liter by the way in case you can't see. MY drink there to the right was a Radler, its like the lowest content of a alcohol in it, and it taste like a lemon soda with a slight beer taste. I HATE the taste of alcohol and beer in general so this was awesome, however  Marcy and Camilla took great pleasure in switching our glasses around, so I ended up drinking some of theres! Blech! It was so gross!   

It had alot of rides there as well, but unlike and American Carnival fair thing where you buy a wristband and can ride everything, this one(and all the ones in Europe I'm finding out!) You have to buy each one seperately which can end up costting you quite a bit of money, so I only rode one ride. Alone but not really. It amused me alot as I had literally just swallowed the last of my food before I went up to ticket booth and immediatly got on the ride. The guy gave me a worried look, but I have never gotten sick on a ride..*knocking on some serious wood right now* My stomach is strong which is why I am the perfect companion to take to a Theme Park, I will ride EVERYTHING! My friends get  motion sickness and didnt even want to ride even one. I'm not gonna go into that, but I was extremely disappointed on that front. Next time  I go to Octoberfest(and I will be back!!!) I'm going with people who want and can ride the rollercoasters. 

Now to end this post, We did go see the City of Munich but that is another blog post in itself.  I'm not a drinker but I drank for this, and had an amazng experience! I cant believe it! If you get a chance to go, go, you won't regret it I know I didnt. And I'll also let you know about my Trip to England next month, I've already booked my bus and hostel!!! Until next time, which will hopefully be very soon bye!