A Day in the Life of an Au Pair! :)

Oh goodness, the day in the life an an American Au Pair in the Netherlands, I almost don’t want to blog tonight. I'm exhausted I had a busy day like extremely busy day and it's finally over. Okay so for those who were interested as I know I was when I researched blogs, I'll give you the rundown of my day.

In the morning wake up at 7:00am, I showered the night before so I can sleep in an extra half hour or so.

At 7:30am be downstairs for breakfast for the kids, and fix their lunchboxes, their breakfast is their dad hasnt done it, and make sure they eat it and then brush their teeth., Oh yeah, brush and comb their hair in that time too.

At about 8:05am, I stay home while their dad bikes with the girls to school, today as they wanted to make sure that I truly knew where the school was I went with them.

Then when at 8:15 am I walk the youngest daughter to daycare which is literally down the street and around the corner from the house.

Alright and then 8:30am-9:00am, I do the daily grocery shopping by bike, or more importantly the bakfiet which looks like this to the left <<<<<. It was very hard to ride like you have to turn slowly, and omigosh it was just awkward I can't wait until I get used to it. After I return home with the groceries I am off until 2:30pm.

So in that time today I met up again with Marcy the other Au Pair I told you guys about and she had her two boys with her and she also had a bakfiet, Hugo who I told you isnt yet a year and Chrissy who has daycare but it doesnt start until 12:pm.. So we took them to the park and they played and then I biked out of the way to see where he went to daycare and got a bit more acquainted with the city. Then we separated I was on my own but I managed to find my way to the house. I got home around 12:30pm, so I had lunch and then some tea and relaxed a bit. Tomorrow I will definitely be napping during that time, but you live and learn right.

Then at 2:30pm I took my normal granny bike after the bakfiet it was a godsend, but it was so uncomfortable, I guess my rear needs to get used to riding a bike 7 days a week.. I rode the bike to the girls school and waited for school to let out at 2:45 where I then picked then up and then we went home. After we relaxed for an hour or so, I was prepping dinner already. We got ready for Fluer's singing lesson, I biked with the girls there and I and Wies(which I found out is not pronounced Reece like I thought, it's pronounced Veece) I know dutch names, and the dad's name is Coert but pronounced Koort. But I digress and we just bascially biked to a park and then walked around before we went back to pick up Fluer.

At around 5:00pm we rode from the singing class to pick up Clara from Daycare but she didnt want to leave yet. And one of her teachers asked her in dutch(not that it mattered as the older girls told me what she said in front of her and were a bit offended on my behalf lol) she asked Clara if she didnt llike the new Au pair(which is me) and Clara said she likes me but she just thought it would be her father today. She speaks very clear for a 3 year old, but she hates speaking english...so I have to have garbled dutch as she will not listen to me if I speak english.. Well theres my incentive I suppose.

After we leave daycare we were a bit behind and I had to cook dinner in a half hour, I managed it sorta...and they said it was good. It was chicken, fried potatoes and, broccoli, totally basic. But I need to remember that the baby is a picky eater and eats any type of pasta but hates meat and veggies unless it's hidden in the food. Food for thought I suppose. I set the table and the parents came home and we sat down to eat.After cleaning the kitchen, I was off at 6:30, but I stick around because the girls, mainly Fluer(who by the way is spelled Floor, but I just cannot make myself write that) Really does like me and likes for me to tuck her in and read her a story. There was only one other Au pair, who bonded with her and that was 4 years ago I believe, so it's pretty special as I'm Au pair number 8 and she hasnt taken to anyone in those years.

Okay that was a day in the life of an American Au Pair in the Netherlands, I'm tired and sore and I'm going to bed...I cannot wait until the weekend, I'm taking the tram to the city centre and buying an electric blanket I just cannot get warm!

Weekend sets the Pace!

Hey guys so I bet you're wondering how my weekend went Right? It was filled I will tell you that. Okay yesterday at 13:30pm, my host dad and host kid Clara(3) came to pick me up in their car, well it's more of a minivan, but anyway they came to Laren to get me. So the car ride was 2 hours and with a 3 year old, it was to be expected. We stopped off at this playground/petting zoo/ everything else place for kids and she had a blast. I was thinking because of my last family that it was going to fill so awkward, it didnt., which is great as I really do like my new Host family. The dad who I believe names is Koort, thats dutch by the way he was extremely nice and laid back.

We get to the house and naturally the Fleur is shy again, but in a couple hours, she was nestled under my arm, so that was syaing something I suppose. She's a very active and well, she's the middle child enough said right? So after a bit of explaining things yesterday and showing me where everything is I went to bed...well I said goodnight to them at around 8:30pm, but I didnt go to sleep until about 12:00am. My Room, well they call it my apartment, because thats what it is, I have a video on the size of it, and Its just so much space I don’t know what to do with it.

So Tomorrow which is today Sunday, was more of a reality check if you will. The Au Pair bike that I have gets me depressed every single time I think about it. Its a true Granny bike, it has NO gears, and the break is to back pedal, I was sad. The Bakfiet thankfully has gears. The bakfiet is a bike with a front carriage part to carry children in, to get them around when they cannot bike themselves. Actually if we're being honest Clara whose 3 as I said can bike really well, she just doesnt understand that cars are dangerous and therefore it's niot safe to allow her to ride her bike somewhere. But letting her ride for fun is tiring, she goes faster then I thought she would and I was running in a coat just to keep pace with her.

Also today, I met a friend of the family who also chooses to Have Au Pairs into their home. I met an Au Pair named Marcy, and she's from Vermont, Her family as well only gets either Canadian Au Pairs, or American Au Paiirs. I did find out that my current family had a spanish Au pair who had been here in January, and she left the Saturday I came, which was yesterday, because her english was next to none. And now she found a family with the help of my current family who lives in Amsterdam who has to kids under the age of 2 and they speak fluent spanish and wish the Au Pair to speak spanish to them so thats perfect for her. Marcy' takes care of a little boy named Hugo, around 11 months, Christopher whose 3, and Alexandria whose 6. Because of the closeness of the kids we have a playdate every Thursday and I'm looking forward to that,

Tomorow is when the real fun begans I get to experience, the True Day in the life of an AU Pair, I will write about that tomorrow after it happens I suppose.

Back to today, Marcy took me on a bike ride to the City Centre, by the girls school, and everywhere else I can think of. It was so many sites, nothing truly sticks in my head and I wish it did. Tomorow I will be cooking dinner for the family, and I have no clue what to make, I would start the week off with something easy like Pasta, but seriously we had that Saturday and Sunday. Do we really want it monday? I will look and if all else fails, Potatoes, a meat and a veggie will do it. Also I get to go grocery shopping tomorow by bike with the bakfiet to get used to it as I will have Clara in it on Weds and Thurs and gotta be safe. And I FINALLY get food for myself as well, yes my fridge can get filled up and on Saturdays I can make my own food...maybe lol.

Alright, I think I'm don’e for the night, well for blogging, I don’t think I'll go to sleep yet, it's much to early. Time for me to surf the internet and get lost in the worldwide web. Not for the first time I got to thinking, before I got here, I thought a year isnt that long, now that I'm here, I'm like 11 months left. Im all up for postive experiences, so I will ask everything Im uncomfortable with!

Well until next time guys, :)

Radioactive milk? And Hiding from strangers at the door? Crazy girls lol

Hey guys I'm back with what I'm hoping is another thrilling post! I'm not sure how to make these entries interesting, but heres to hoping I'm succeeding some way. It's 12am at the moment, but I'm not usually tired at this time, which is a bummer as I really have to get used to waking up at 6am...blech. I'm really not a morning person, anyway, I want to tell you a bit more about my weekend.

So Natalia and I get a ride back to the bed and breakfast and when we get here around 3pm, no one is home, the couple we stay with were still in Breda, which is a part of Beliguim and we were home alone in that big house. So what did we do, we watched a movie, Piranha DD, which has a kinship to shark movies for me, as for some reason I enjoy movies where animals do all the killings, instead of horror movies wihich freak me out. But that is for another day. So back to what I was saying, we were watching the movie when I don’t know maybe an hour or so later, someone knocks on the door. We're right there on the sofa, we can see them, as the door is see through glass.

We freeze as we couldnt recognize the man and as he turns to look around the house and at us, we dive for the flioor. I know right, who does that? But in a foreign country I do not open doors to men I do not know, especially as we are in the country, no one would hear us if we screamed. We laughed, and then when he leaves we realize who he was, someone's husband at the agency. Oops, but we didnt go outside at all. We were like kids giggling but we didnt open the door!

One thing else I noticed on Saturday when the Au Pairs all sat down to talk, the dutc people here eat ALOT of butter, do you know how unhealthy that is. They can eat, a slice of bread un toasted with butter and then chocolate sprinkles on top, thats considered breakfast actually. And they have mil.k here, that doesnt need to be refrigerator, it can stay on the shelf. I don’t drink that one, I was told it has something radioactive inside of it, that keeps it fresh......what the hell? Nope, that doesnt sound good to me at all.

Okay, I think I'm done, nothing really happened this week. I get to go to my host Family's house on Saturday, heres to hoping they still liked what they saw a week ago!

Belgium and Hot chocolate in a bar...What the hell?

Hey there guys, omigosh do I have a big post for you tonight, I think I might have to break it up a bit as I may get a bit bored typing it all. I don’t know where to start actually. I went to Belgium this past weekend as I said, and I'm going to be uploading a few pictures from the trip but the rest will be on my facebook page. It was extremely cold in Belguim the weather was windy and cold and wet. We were miserable and everything they wanted to show us, was of course outside.

The trip started off with Natalia and I getting a ride to Zuid about 20 minutes away where out Triple C leaders were there to pick us up and then we drove 2 hours to Rosandaal train station where we picked up the 6 other girls. I didnt really enjoy my ride there, I'm not a car person, every time I get in one I want to sleep. I get my best sleep done in a car, this was not to be the case when I was in the car with just one other person who loved to talk. But eventually we made it to the train station and my voice I swear was worn out.

Everyone squeezed into the two cars, I was in the front by default, I was taller and there first so I stayed where I was, and If you've ever seen Dutch cars, they are so tiny! We managed though but If there happened to be one more girl, it wouldnt have worked. So after we get in the cars, we head out in on the freeway to Belgium which was only like a 45 minutes ride away from us. We drove through customs they had no customs here, not between EU countries so even though I brought my passport it was uneeded, but I think if went by myself I would need it. I'm not sure though, but I'm not about to chance it.

So after we get to Belgium, we turn in the Antwerp direction as that was out destination and Nathalia(a triple c leader) Side note, there are two Natalias on this trip, but one is spelled with an h and one is not, you'll see the difference* But I digress Margo, the woman I was in the car with had a GPS in her car, and we followed it, and still got lost because in Antwerp they had redone the city and the gps didnt know. So we were driving around for a good half hour more lost, until finally we get where we are supposed to be, in a youth hostel.

Most of the buildings were like thiis

So we headed up the stairs to the hostel in a room with 8 beds, as it's 8 girls so its perfect and we all settle in a bit. Okay, here is where it gets weird. I know for a fact that I brough a new bar of Dove soap with me, but when I get there no dove soap. Seriously I left the room and left my soap on the bed, came back its not there. It was weird, I'm not pointed fingers...by why in the hell...take soap.. I'm still in disbelief, but I keep telling myself it could be worse, and try to forget about my poor stolen soap.

So after we all settled in a bit, we took a tram ride to the city centre in Belgium and walked around a bit, but by now everyone was starving so they only gave us a half hour to find food. We were...well we all didnt like that idea of course, as we wanted to sit and eat after that car ride. So we headed to an italian restaurant, and each chose something, I had a 4 cheese pizza, it was awesome, omg I don’t have a picture because I didnt want to be that person taking a picture of her food in the restaurant. Our guides Margo and Nathalia were a bit peeved that we took about an hour, but the trip was technically for us, so its not like we lost much time and we were all together.

The girls that went on the trip, I now know all of their names, but after getting an introduction in rapid sequence I didnt. And I was referring to them by their nationalities in my head, to keep everyone straight. I asked, because if you don’t ask you'll never know, I asked them to repeat their name to me, and they were laughing at my explanation why. I

'm like; 'I cant just say, hey Peruvian, to Selena, so let me give you a little bit of insight of the mixture of Nationalities on the trip. We had 1 Peruvian called Selena, 2 Colombians named Natalia, and Maria-Claudia, 2 Americans(including me) but another girl named Larissa, 1 Mexican girl named Claudia, 1 South African girl called Kaylin, and 1 Bolivian named Anna, See it was a good mix yeah, I thought so! And we were all Au Pairs from the ages of 18-26 and we got along great, it was amazing!

This is actually a giant stone Hand, we are leaning on

When you get a big group of Au Pair girls together, naturally you're going to get a lot of talking and talking we did. We walked around Belgium looking at shops and the likes until it got dark as Margo and Nathalia told us to meet them at 10pm at the Bonaparte Karoke and bar. You know because it's legal to be 18 and drinking here, it was weird seeing all those young kids, but anyway back to what I was saying. We walked around for a half hour or more looking for the perfect bar for 8 girls that we could all agree on, and it was hard. We dealt with snobbery from some bars and restaurants, but finally we found some cozy small place. Emphasis on the small, we managed to fit 8 girls into a booth meant for 4 people,

I sat on the windowsill with another girl and there were 3 girls in the booths on each side. It was tight and everyone was touching someone, there was no thing as personal space, but we didnt mind. So then everyone ordered their drinks, I'm not a beer drinker...I hate the taste of beer, but I was like when in Belgium and order one that was supposed to be citrus and fruity, but it tasted like plain beer, and a waste of 3 euros. So then one of my friends ordered a cheery beer,

I don’t like cheery but I drank a bit of it, and I could barely taste the beer. So I ordered that next, finished it but I didnt enjoy it you know? So when they ordered like a 3^rd round of beer I went for a hot chocolate with whip cream...in a bar lol. No one laugh, but they looked at me strange and the bartender had an expression on his face, but I always dare to be different. After wasting like 3 hours in the bar, it was 10pm and ready for Karoke, so we headed there, I was the only one in the frame of mind to remember where it was. So we got in there, and it was hot and sweaty, and oh my god, just not my scene?

At night in the City Centre

It was like a Karoke club or something, so we squeeze our way through the crowd and here they order ANOTHER round of beer, and all I'm thinking is since when is everybody an Alcholic? So I take a seat while they're all drinking and screaming at their top of their lungs. Finally Margo and Nathalia and our tour guide a family member of Margo, also named Anna, come and join in. They stay maybe an hour or so when the adults say they're done and for us to remember to be ready at 10 am the next morning. Before they go Margo comes to me, and is like did I want to come with them, at first I was like no, but after that hour I was like yeah. The whole party and drinking thing, is something i'm not into it. I've tried and god it's just not really for me.

After that we go back to the hostel, and I disappear into our room, thankfully one of the other girls, she hadnt been feeling so well and was losing her voice came with me. So we go in and lay down, about an hour or so later, theres a thump inside our rooms, half of the other girls have returned Natalia is drunk and is super loud and just fun, it had started to rain and her and the other two hispanic girls had taken a cab for 3 euros. The other girls decided to walk at 2am in the middle of Belgium while it was cold and rainy, I wouldnt have done it.

So they finally get in at around 2:30am I think and then we all sleep, more or less. The night was hiliarous thought. I was on the bottom bunk and Larissa was on the one above me. Sometime in the night, I was more or less asleep, I hear a bam, thump, oh shit and other noises. I'm sleeping ya know? So my first reaction is I kid you not a loud, “Whoa, whoa,” lol That was pretty much it, but it was enough for everyone who was still awake to burst out into laughter lol. Gosh that weekened was so much fun, I have more from Sunday, but this post is long enough. Until tomorrow I think.

Belgium Tomorrow!

So I'm getting ready for my trip to Antwerp, Belgium tomorrow. Its Sat-Sun, and I was excited, but you know how my life is. When something gets good, something else goes wrong. The fact that this keeps happening makes me wonder if something is really wrong with me. It's like I can never have too many good things going at once, because thats fates way of saying screw you again. I lost a friend today, which sucks actually, really much. I guess its hitting harder here, because I feel so alone in this country, and then the little friends that I get I hold them close. But you cant make someone be your friend, nor why would you want too. So I guess, I'm washing my hands again.

I don’t want a depressing blog post, so I shall um talk about today. It rained all today, but we still Natalia, a columbian Au Pair, and I guess a new friend, took the dogs walking before coming back and cooking dinner at the bed and breakfast which is called home until I go to my new home with my host family Next Saturday..

So tomorrow when I go on my trip, there is going to be another American Au Pair. That's exciting, she's from Arizona, if nothing in common, Americans, girls, in their 20's, Au pairs lol. I think thats more then enough to have something to chat about. I should probably try to go to sleep, I have to wake up at 6:45am tomorrow, and I am so NOT a morning person, And tomorrow, means....finally pictures!

Dont ever give up on your dreams

Dont ever give up on your dreams.....and I mean that!

I really should remember that saying when the going gets tough. Last week, I felt like my life was ending, that my amazing journey was over that quick, and that I would come home after 3 weeks, a failure. I didnt give up though, and I'm still here. My agency, had originally told me that they couldnt help me, because I wasnt their Au Pair, I use those words loosely. When I feel like I'm getting abandoned, I shut people out, and I did. At their words I started searching agencies that would take an American Au Pair, I never felt more alone then I did that. After an incident with another Agency, the one I'm with ask if I would give them a week to find me a family, and I said yes. I'm currently staying at the bed and breakfast that they have for stranded Au pairs, or Au Pairs whose family goes on holiday and doesnt bring you, or something of that sort.

It's very nice, but back I digress. I went back on AuPairWorld.Net, and I just sent out massive messages to host families, explaining my sitiuation and that I can start ASAP as I'm already in the Netherlands. That seemed to be the magic word. I had a bunch of negatives of course, and days it felt so hopeless and alone. But I didnt give up, I picked up my residence card this past Friday that says if I have a host family, I can stay in this country until Jan 1^st, 2015 as an Au Pair. I have no family when I got it, so I could stay until Feb 25 and then I would have to go home. I didnt want that, I was committed to this trip and I didnt want to be ashamed of coming home so early and without success. So I cut myself off from everything and this blog as well.

This past week has been busy, I've had interviews that I thought went well, but the families all thought I was a sweet American girl, but didn't believe that I would be firm with their children...I can tell you that know me, I don’t have a problem with telling some no. I can discipline, I just really don’t like it. So after getting a negative yesterday morning, I had an interview in what is called Den Haag, and that is The Hague. It's dutch city, that has TONS of international people, but more on that later. The family is amazing! I met them in person, and while the the older adults went to speak dutch about the agency, I spent time with the oldest girls Wies, which is pronounced Reece, and she just turned 9. And she's and awesome little girl, we clicked immediately, And the grandmother thought so too, which is a plus! And she told me when she had to go to bed, that she hoped that I would become their Au Pair. Wies, has two younger Sisters, Fluer whose 6, and Clara whose 3.

And they want me as their Au pair! I found out earlier today! They are a true dutch family, their house is huge. I cannot explain that the most more on that later. I will cook 3 times a week(which is fine!), then I will take the girls to school by bike...I was looking forward to that the most, and then take the 3 year old to daycare twice a week, and then the rest of the week, she's with me. Wow right? This is amazing, the atmosphere in the house was like home alone. It was very comfortable and they're a special type of family they're used to hosting American, Australian, and Irish Au Pairs. They want native speakers of english so their girls can learn that way. I understand it, When you want the best for your children and you can, why settle for less. Okay, and I'm back to blogging! I feel so happy, I just cannot express myself, Tomorow, I'll tell a bit more about where I'm staying and what I do here. Thanks for reading guys! And I will see you tomorrow.!