Aupair advice: How to meet other aupairs.

If you are anything like me, one of your main worries will be about meeting other aupairs who you can hang out and spend time with. This will widely vary on your location.

There are some countries, like France, Germany and England where hiring aupairs is a very common thing. In these countries meeting other aupairs and being able to get together with them will be much easier, as you might have another aupair right next to your house. In the other hand, there are other countries where hosting au pairs is not such a common thing and where meeting other aupairs will be harder; Spain and Portugal for example are countries where hiring aupairs is not as common as it is in other countries. 

This will also depend on where your family lives. If you are going to stay in a big city or close to a big city it will be much easier to meet other auparis or exchange students who you will have lots of things in common with. If you are told that the host family lives in a small town away from any big cities keep in mind that finding other aupairs will be harder. But don't get me wrong, this can also mean that if you don't spend time with other aupairs you might spend more time with the host family getting to know other places and you might also make a group of local friends, which will be great for your experience!

If, as I said before, you are going to be living in a big city or close to one you can find a group of auparis in the area through Facebook; if you are going to be staying in Paris for example look for groups named "Aupairs Paris 2015" or "English speakers Paris" and you will find various groups of people you might enjoy meeting. 

Then again, if you sign up for a language course you wil get to meet other aupairs and foreigners who you can hang out with. 

And lastly, in big cities there are many clubs where they make aupair meet ups and who make monthly or semi-montly meet ups and who also make trips about twica a year.

So, in conclusion, if you are an open minded person and willing to meet new people, no matter where you go, you will for sure find people to spend time with.

Being an aupair: feeling anxious.

If, like me, you are waiting for the moment to start working as an aupair to come, or if you are about to leave your country to move away, you are probably feeling just like I am feeling right now: ANXIOUS.

You still have a million things to do before leaving, you need to get everything ready and say goodbye to so many people that you will need weeks to get to hang with all of them and you have to organize the trip. And, of course, this can get overwealming, so, you feel scared. Scared of everything you are leaving behind and will miss, and scared of all the things you will have to face once you get to your new home.

But don't panic, really, do NOT panic. When I feel over overwhelmed I leave whatever I am doing, I go outside, sit on my porch and after lighting a cigarrette I think of everything I want to do once I get to my host country. I think of all the things I am looking fordward to doing with my hostkids, I think of all the French I will learn and I think of all the new places I will get to visit. I just turn my thoughts around and get a positive view on the whole thing. I remember the main reason why I decided to be an aupair and it really works for me. So, I highly recommend doing the same thing and not letting the insecurities ruin the preparation for a new adventure.

Aupair advice: Crafts to make with children

When working as an aupair, you spend many hours with the children you are caring for. It is very easy to turn on the TV, have them watch it and stop worrying, but...
one: you weren't hired to have the kids watching TV while you spend hours with your cellphone.
and two: the kids will soon get bored and they will become harder to handle. 

Because of this, in the summer or whenever the weather is good, take the kids to a park, take a walk with them, go to the swimming pool or do any kind of outside activities you all enjoy. But... what if the weather is bad? Very often, specially during the winter, you will have to keep them home, so in order to keep them entertained, what better than doing some crafts with them? So here I am collecting a list of crafts you can do with things that can easily be found in the house.


Homemade clay (plasticine):

You will need:

• A cup of water.
• A spoonfull of oil.
• Three cups of flour.
• Food coloring. 

How to do it:

Mix together all the ingredientes except the flour and mix it all until you get an homogeneous mixture; make sure to add enough food coloring to have a bright colored micture once you add the flour. Slowly add the flour and mix it all; keep mixing until you get a mixture as thick as cookie dough. Mix until the color has spread to all the mixture, and you are done! Now the kids can play with it, and even if the little ones put it in their mouth they are safe, because this mixture is not toxic!

Stamps with potatoes:

This craft is very simple and the kids will have fun both making them and playing with them after they have been done. 

In order to make stamps with potatoes you will only need three things: potatoes, knifes (plastic knifes if you are going to let the kids use them) and liquid paint. First, cut the potatoes in half horizontally and once you have half a potatoe incise the shape you want on them. Once you have made all the shapes you wanted to do, paint the potatoes and use them as stamps! The kids will love it! 

Picture frames:

You will need:

• Cardboard.
• Paint (markers, liquid paint and others)
• Glue.
• Scissors. 
• A picture.

How to do it:

First cut the cardboard in the shape you want the picture frame to have; remember to make both the front and the back part. Now, together with the children decorate the cardboard, you can decorate it by painting it, by sadding stickers... feel free to use your imagination! Lastly paste the picture to the back part and then glue the front part too. Now all you need to do is find a spot where you can put the picture in the new homemade frame. 

Anti-stress balls.

These balls are great both to play with them and even to simply hold them and you only need 3 ingredients to make them: rice, balloons and a funnel.

First choose a balloon, fill it with rice (untill it is as big as an egg) by using the funnel and tie it with a small knot. Now take another balloon and cut the narrow part of it; then, cover the fist baloon with this second one. If you want to make the ball harder to break so that you don't run into a room full of rice on the floor (or even worse, have the parents come home and find their kids' room unexplainably covered in rice). 

This craft only takes two minutes and the kids will love to play with things that they created themselves. 

Colorfull sugar.

This craft is also very simple and the kids love it. I did it in class when I was 7 and I remember that my classmates and I loved it. The result of it is very nice and the kids can make it as a gift for their parents, they will feel incredibly proud of it!

You will need:

• Sugar.
• Chalk in different colors.
• A seethrough pot (plastic or glass) that has a lid. transparente.

How to do it:

Take some sugar (a handfull for instance), color it very well with chalk and put it appart from the rest of the sugar. Now do the same with as many colors as you want always making sure that the colros don't get mixed. Once you have colored all the sugar take it in parts and put it in the pot carefully so that the colors don't get mixed (if they do you will have a pot full of brownish sugar). Fill it in completely, and lastly close the lid very strongly. You will love the result! 

Visiting my host family before I become an au pair

As I mentioned in another post, I actually got to meet  my host family before I we decided that I would be working for them. The family I will be staying with lives 900km away from me, but on holiday they usually rent a house in a town that is an hour away from where I live. So, last summer while they were on vacation they came and visited me.

Well, in a couple of weeks they are going to a place 400km away from where I live to spend a couple of days, so we decided that I would go on vacation to the same place with my boyfriend and we will get to spend a couple days together. So I will be seing them soon! 

This is going to be great for me, as it will allow me to spend time with them, getting to know them before starting to work for them, and this will help me feel more confident by the time I go and move in with them. 

There is not much to tell you guys about it, but I will tell you more about it when I go and visit them. 

Homesickness when living abroad

If you are following my blog you will know that I still haven't started my au pair experience, but I can tell you that I know the feeling of homesickness.

A few years ago, when I was 17, I packed everything up and I went to the USA thousands of kilometres away from home to be an exchange student in an American high school. I left my parents behind in an airport and left for a far a away land for 10 months. I left knowing that for 10 months I would not see anyone from back home, as I could not receive any visits and I was not allowed to visit home, not even for Christmass. So I certainly know what it's like to feel homesick.

And there are two things I want to tell you about it:it is totally normal to feel homesick and it gets better with time. 

If you cry yourself to sleep on the first nights, or if there are times when you can't hold it in anymore and you end up hiding somewhere to cry those tears you have been holding for a while don't worry. That is absolutely normal. Not only are you missing everbody and everything back home, you are also trying to adapt to a whole new environment, you are taking in a huge amount of changes in a very short period of time, and that, of course is a lot to deal with. A new place, a new language, new routines... those are a lot of changes to take in all at once, so sometimes you just give in and cry. 

The best thing you can do is to keep yourself bussy. Plan your days so that you have many things to do, the more things you do, the less time you will have to feel homesick. And the more tired you get the sooner you will fall asleep and you will avoid those long nights where you cry out of feeling nothalgic. 

Another thing you should do is find someone you can talk to. Talking to those back home is great and it will be of great help for you, but talking to someone who is there for you and who is going through the same things as you will be very helpfull aswell. 

And lastly don't get those sad moments condition you. As I said earlier it is normal to feel that way and it gets better with time. Don't plan an early return because you think you won't addapt. Maybe now it will be hard to believe, but soon will come the time when you will have to go back home and then you will have a hard time saying goobye and adapting back to the life back home. So enjoy your stay at the most and give yourself some time to adapt to all the changes. 

Let's bag our luggage.

Packing up all the stuff you are going to need for a whole year... Let's face it, it's IMPOSSIBLE. That is why we need to do two things: choose and minimize.

There will be many things you will need to buy once you get to your host country and others that you will have to manage without. But we need to pack up things that are absolutely necessary and those things that will be either hard to find or too expensive to buy in your host country. Here goes my list of what you should pack up:

• Basic clothing. Be realistic, you won't be able to take with you all the clothes you would like to take with you. Once you get to your "new home" you will end up buying lots of clothes and when you go back home you will probably leave many of those clothes in your host family's home. That's why it's convenient to choose a few clothing items that you really like and specially the clothes you feel that you will use most in your host country. Always check for the weather around the year in the area where you will be staying and choose the clothes to take with you wisely.

• Vanity kit. Don't pack everything that you will be using. Don't take shampooes, hair softeners, body lotions... with you, they will take too much space in your suitcase and they can be easily found in any supermarket. Take only specific or expensive things that you will need, like your favorite make up, or similar things. If you are are going to take hair dryers or straightening remember to make sure that the plugs in your hometown and in your host country are the same. 

• Computer. If you own a laptop take it with you. Being with your loved ones will be something you will miss much more than you ever imagined, specially on the first days. This is why e-mails, skype talks and every online contact will be more than necessary for you.

• Things that remind you of home. As I already mentioned, there will always be people from back home that you will miss. Take little things that remind you of them that you can put in your new room and feel like you are home when you look at them. Take some printed pictures, gifts they made for you, letters they wrote you before you left... Take with you little things that will help you feel like you are with your loved ones. 

• Gifts. Even though it is not a must, take some gifts for your host family, they will give you somethingfor sure when you leave, and a little gift will lead to a good start. For the kids, you can buy a book or a toy you think they might like, and in the case of babies you can buy them a blanket or some clothes you think the parents might like. And for the parents either typical food from your country or any kind of souvenir are great for a first gift.

• Bikini or bathing suit. They always come in handy. Even if you think you might never use it, you never know when a plan to a swimming pool or a trip to the beach might come up. A bikini doesn't take away any space in your suitcase and it is convenient to take one with you just in case.

• Winter accesories. If you are going to be living in a cold place take a pair of gloves and a winter hat with you. They don't take much space and if you take them with you, the morning you wake up and feel the cold weather out announcing that winter has come you will be prepared to face it.

• Medicine. You will not always be able to find all the medicines you need in your host country. So, I highly recommend taking with you all the medicine you will need on the first months.  

• Cell phone. Obviously, you will not be able to use your regular phone for your whole stay, as it would be too expensive. But I highly recommend taking your cell phone specially for the first day, so that you have a mean of communication in case things don't go as expected.

• Money. You don't know when you will have acces to a bank and remember that you will still have expenses before getting your first pay; so, it is very important to bring some money with you for your first stay.

To keep in mind when choosing a family

There are many things to keep in mind when choosinf a family, the importance of each of them depends on us, but I would deeply recommend to keep all of these in mind when deciding if a family is the right one for you:

• The parents: The first thing to metion and what I personally believe is the most important factor is the parents attitude towards you. When you look to profiles, try to find comments made by the parents about being willing to make the au pair feel like she is part of the family; this shows that they are not only looking for a housekeeper or a babysitter, but that they are interested in the cultural exchange and that you will be welcomed to participate with them in different family events. The connection you feel in the e-mail exchanges is also something to take into account. If from the beggining you feel like you don't click with each other find another family. Keep in mind that the first days you spend with the family you will feel vulnerable and that a good relationship with the family will be of great help in those moments.

• The children:  If you are one of those people who hates dirty diapers and who can't stand crying children don't consider choosing a family with babies. If, in the other hand, you are not an active person, who is also patiend and who is willing to run, get dirty and to play a thousand games, don't choose a family with older children who need to be entertained all the time. Most of your time in the host country wil be spent with the children you will be taking care of, so, keep in mind what kind of care those children will need and if you will be able to face those needs in a daily basis. 

• Where they live. If you hate the countryside and you are a city person, don't consider moving to a small town or to a house away from civilization. And obviously, if you are a country person who hates the stress and the movement of big cities and prefers the quiet and long walks with nobody around, you better not choose a family who lives in a big city. Both places have its advantages and disadvantages. Usually, the famillies who live in the countryside have bigger houses and more place to play, while most of the families living in big cities live in appartments. At the same time, living in a big city implies having many things to do both with the children and on your own or with friends; while in little towns or in the countryside the things you will be able to do are limited. 

• What will your duties be? Most families will ask you to help with some "light housework"; insist to the parents to specify which this will include. Some families might only ask you to pick up the toys the kids leave out, while others might ask for much more (cleaning the kids' rooms, doing laundry, ironing, cooking, cleaning their dishes...). Always remember which tasks you are NOT supposed to be doing: cleaning and tidying up the parents' bedroom, doing big cleaning work, cleaning windows, doing the parents' laundry... Keep in ming that being an au pair means taking care of the children, not being a housekeeper.