Livin' La Vida Down Under

Hello wonderful readers! This coming Monday will mark my first full week here. While I have yet to explore Toowoomba and other parts of the country, I love being here. Part of why I have not had much of an opportunity to explore the town this week was that I was sick from Tuesday evening to Friday morning.  That said, I consider myself lucky not to have experienced serious jet lag. Aside from being sick, I have been familiarizing myself with my routine and getting to know my host family. 


Because I did not find my family through an au pair agency, the possibility of the family not working out would have been greater than if I found a family from an agency where the staff could have screened families to rule out potential problems. However, let me alleviate any worries you may have by saying that my host family is AWESOME! Both the kids and parents are super nice and fun to be with and immediately made me feel like a family member rather than an employee. Though you may think taking care of four kids can be overwhelming, it is actually not as hard as you might think because the two older kids can take care of themselves. Nicole owns a tea shop and is a chef by training. Let me also add that she is a great cook. :) Patrik is an agricultural engineer who works at natural gas mines about two hours away from Toowoomba. He works in three week blocks and is home for five days, so when he is home, I get to travel! I did meet him today because he came home to fix the gas heater. Reegan is 14 and is very independent. Not only is she able to take care of herself, but she is incredibly helpful with both her younger siblings and me. She does not hesitate to show me where the boys' lunchboxes are or reinforce to the two younger boys that I am in charge. Reece is 11, and while he and Reegan both do not need a lot of care from me, he often needs to be reminded multiple times to feed the pets or put his shoes on. Sixten and Sebastian are 5 and 4, respectively. Both are energetic, cuddly, and affectionate, but sometimes have a hard time listening. For example, they love to jump on me. Not only do they come close to hurting me, but they often end up hurting themselves. Basically, getting them to stop jumping on me involves me saying "no" and explaining how they and I could get hurt, usually multiple times.  Although they often get upset when I discipline them, five minutes later they forget about it.

Like any job, some aspects of au pairing can be challenging or overwhelming. That being said, I have learned a lot the past week. While this job is not my first time overseas, working as an au pair and living with a family is very different from studying abroad and traveling with my family. I will go into more detail about these joys and challenges in a future post, but I can tell you that I have learned a lot about myself living with a host family in ways that I have not when traveling with family or students from my alma mater.

Until next time!

The Journey Here

You do not have to have extensive international travel experience to imagine what my journey to Down Under was like. If I had to describe it in only one word, that word would be LONG. Between a 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Auckland, a 3 hour layover in Auckland, and a 3 hour flight from Auckland to Brisbane, I spent a total of 18 hours in transit. While I am no stranger to flying internationally, two aspects of my travel were strange to me. First, it was dark the entire duration of my flight from SF to NZ. Though my European flights have involved nighttime flying, I always left the US when it was still light. During the 5 hours of sleep I got on the plane, the light would shine through and I would wake up because I thought it was light outside. As soon as I looked out the window, I quickly noticed the sky was black and the light was from inside the plane. Second, I arrived in Auckland at 5:15 am and it was still dark. Until then, I had never waited in an almost empty airport very early in the morning.


Overall, my flights were pretty uneventful. I watched a few movies on my flight to Auckland and a few episodes of some of my favorite TV shows on my flight to Brisbane as well as played Sporcle trivia games on my iPhone. I watched Joyful Noise, We Bought a Zoo, and the first 15 minutes of Crazy, Stupid Love (which I unfortunately did not enjoy). Among those three movies, I liked We Bought a Zoo the best. I was also glad to catch up on a few episodes of Modern Family and Family Guy. My one major complaint about my long flight was that the flight crew on Air New Zealand would not let people sleep when they served meals. When the crew made the announcements that dinner and breakfast were being served, they told us we had to put our seats in the upright position. If people want to sleep during meals on a flight as long as this one, let them! I have slept through meals on my most recent flights to Europe and the crews on Lufthansa and United let people sleep. I don't know about you, but I want to eat when I want to, not when the airline crew says I have to. 5 hours is the most I have slept on a flight, and I was lucky to have an empty seat. Unfortunately, the armrest did not go all the way up so I could not stretch out as comfortably as I would have liked. However, my seats on the plane to Brisbane were quite comfy so maybe the aircraft of my previous flight was an older one.

After going through customs and getting my luggage, I was greeted by my host mom and her adorable 4 year old with flowers when I walked out of the airport. I will write another entry of my first 24 hours here, as a lot has happened. Jet lag has not been as bad as I would have expected, but I am tired so I think I am going to go to bed. Good night (or good morning/afternoon), lovely readers!

Welcome!

Good day mates! As many of you know, I am leaving tomorrow evening for Australia. I will be there for a little less than 3 months as an au pair for 4 wonderful kids. In addition to perfecting my childcare skills, I will also add "driving on the left side of the road" to one of my many talents. I am looking forward to traveling around Australia and New Zealand. Depending on how adventurous I am, I might even try to go to Bali or Thailand. 

Just because I am going to an awesome country does not mean forget about me! Like I have in the past (if you've never read my blogs before, welcome!), I am blogging so you all can know what I am up to and I do not have to tell the same stories over and over. PLEASE do not hesitate to leave comments on my blog, and you can also get in touch with me via email, skype, or facebook. While I will be able to use my phone when I'm there, calling and texting to the US will be expensive, so I am going to be mindful of how much I call and text when I am there. Just so you know, Australia is 17 hours ahead of CA and OR (15 for you Chicago folks), so I may take longer than usual to get back to you. That being said, I PROMISE I will respond.

Thanks for reading!