I'm translating some of my posts to German so I can get a bit more practice with the language.
Mein Gott, die Kinder! 2 Jahre alten La ist so ärgerlich, wenn sie für immer gehen "Neinnnnnnn, neinnnnnn, neinnnnnn 'in einer schrecklichen Stimme weinerlich, wenn etwas nicht ihren Weg zu gehen. Lu ist nur unwesentlich erträglicher, aber er immer noch dumm irritierende Dinge wie Springen auf meinem Bett in grobe Socken, fragen mich immer, was ich tue oder was etwas ist, zu berühren und meine Sachen die ganze Zeit. Sein Englisch Wortschatz ist ziemlich fortgeschritten für sein Alter, aber ich bin immer so krank Anhörung "Und was ist das hier 'oder' Aber ich will nicht." Er ist nur 3 aber so dass ich denke, ich sollte ihm etwas Spiel geschnitten. Das Links-Rechts-Seite die Entwicklung des Gehirns / Konnektivität oder was auch immer besser, der Grund, warum diese Kinder so sind, Schmerzen in den Hintern.
Nun sind beide Kinder weinen, nachdem die Mutter hatte nur eine seltene Folge, wo sie tatsächlich auf sie schrie. Ich bin froh, weil sie nicht oft genug meiner Meinung nach nicht schreien oder Disziplin. Der Vater ist noch schlimmer, scheint es, dass er lässt nur diese Kinder tun was auch immer.
Other than the kids, everything else is pretty much good. We are staying at such an incredible hotel with the most amazing food. Sausages, scrambled and boiled eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, omelettes, crepes, Nutella, cereal, fruit, yoghurt, bread, hams, cheeses, and so much more food at the breakfast buffet! After being starved in France, I can barely control myself here. The lunches are also buffets, and in the afternoon there is an unlimited selection of cakes, snacks, and hot treats. Then at dinner things get really crazy. Salad buffet, cheese buffet, kids buffet, unlimited ice cream buffet, often 5 course dinner for the adults. Yesterday was the gala dinner which was a crazy 7 course feast. They have a pretty awesome water park too here. I hope we aren't going to the pool tonight (we have been going every night with the kids and I hate washing/blowdrying my hair every single day).
Last night the parents and I met up with one of A's colleagues and his wife after dinner at the bar, and we talked until 12am. They all made a real effort to speak English whilst I was there, and we actually managed to hold quite decent conversations. I really think that after this gap year, my conversational/social skills with strangers will improve so much. I think some of the adults got a bit tipsy towards the end because they all had quite a few drinks. The dad walked up to the 24/7 baby buffet and asked 'What's for dinner? Mmm spaghetti Bolognese.' even though it was 12am. And the look on the mum's face when he said that was so funny. She just went, 'What?? Dinner?' in this really incredulous tone of voice. It sucked that after only one drink, this cough medicine tasting Italian liquor, I'd gone bright red. Damn those Asian genes. I've had nice conversations with the dad over meals about piano and school and university and career paths. All in all, the parents are nice, but I am still getting to know them. Although I'm already closer to them after a week than I ever was with the French parents, Pascale and N.
Oh and by the way, just remembered that I had this WTF conversation with Pascale the night before I left:
P: Before you leave, I'd just like to let you know something my mother and I were discussing when she was here.
Me: Yes?
P: My mother felt that sometimes you were a bit rude because you would leave us during dinner without saying a word, or you would only say goodnight to me but not to her. I don't know, maybe you were shy or you didn't want to disturb us. Actually I don't think you were shy, I just think you didn't notice.
Me: Um, I don't really recall doing that, and I wasn't here for many dinners.
P: Oh, but I remember you doing it a couple of times. Anyway, just thought you should know that it's best to always say something before you leave at dinner, so you don't do the same thing with the new family in Germany.
God. What is wrong with Pascale and her mother? First of all, I don't even remember not saying a word. I'm not that rude or unaware of my surroundings. I reckon Pascale giving me and Al smaller serving portions than everyone else at the dinner table is a whole lot ruder. I always said goodnight or bye to Pascale, and I remember saying 'bonne nuit' or smiling to the grandmother. Secondly, I probably only ate like 2 dinners with the family in total during the week the grandmother came to visit! And why can't a grown, 60 or 70-something year old woman confront me about this herself if it offends her so much? She knows my French is good enough to hold a basic conversation with her. If I could conduct a conversation about the French president having an affair entirely in French with the grandmother, surely we could also converse about my supposed 'rudeness' in French also. And the fact that she had to 'discuss' this with Pascale is truly sad.
I'm proud of myself anyhow for being more assertive over the past couple of years. I think in a strange way changing schools really raised my confidence level up a lot more because I was out of my comfort zone in a larger school than what I'd been used to. I'm glad I confronted Pascale about my work hours. So many people think that I'm shy, but in all honesty, I'm not actually as shy as many people think. There's a difference between being shy and being reserved/introverted, and I'm glad Pascale emphasised that she didn't think I was shy. And shame on that grandmother that she couldn't stand up to or confront a 17 year old when something about my behaviour was bothering her. As Al pointed out, what a random and strange thing to tell me the night before I'd be leaving.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Leaving France (but returning very soon)
Ainsi. Beaucoup de choses se sont passées depuis mon dernier poste de blog.
I typed that in French with almost no help from google translator. If I can name just one benefit from my time with that French family, it would definitely be my vast improvement in the French language. Listening, reading, writing, speaking, all of it has improved so much in just 2 months. What I learnt in high school, a lot of it all came back to me and I learnt some really essential things too that just wouldn't have sunk into my mind if I hadn't stayed in France for almost 2 months. Anyway, I didn't have to say goodbye to Paris just yet because I'm actually going back there in about 2 weeks time on my Contiki tour.
I have to admit, updating this blog now almost gives me peace of mind because more than anything else at the moment, I am scared of losing my English writing skills, strange enough as that sounds. The essay writing skills I had developed by the end of year 12 were the one thing that enabled me to do things like fluke the SOR I paper with a 49/50 through 30 minutes of study in the car despite not having practised a single SOR question since trials. And now that I have once again reconsidered my career path (international relations/law at ANU instead of international studies/journalism at UNSW), I will really have to start trying not to let my writing skills get too rusty. The fact that no one reads this blog because I changed the settings to private doesn't matter. I mean there's way too many things on this blog that could get me into deep shit with the wrong people (although those people don't matter to me in life so it's not like I would care anyways). This blog is for me and myself only. Well, who knows. This could all be nothing more than a fleeting memory in five years time.
I'm in a hotel room with a king and single bed and an awesome bathroom all to myself in a little village called Serfaus in Austria. The hotel I am staying at, the Löwe, is a 'kinderhotel' which means they make a huge effort to cater to children. Free pram rental, kids buffet at each meal, free childcare, playcenter, waterpark, unlimited bibs and Hipp baby food (I am quite well acquainted with European baby food brands after dealing with T in France), none of the dirty looks that usually tend to get thrown at screaming kids in hotel restaurants. Anyway, this is a pretty different scenario to my last night in Chelles, France. I think all in all I ended up working 10-15 hours extra for that horrid French family. I know because I kept track of each and every single hour I worked for them, and I had a pretty impressively detailed system going on. I even factored in things like not having the promised wi-fi for so many days straight, not given enough to eat, being made to babysit at 11:30pm, etc, and deducted working hours accordingly based on what I thought was fair. Granted, I didn't deduct that many hours for the wi-fi and food issue, because I was pretty bad the first couple of weeks too. I'd babysit T whilst going on my laptop and phone, which I will admit was not the appropriate, professional thing to do and I shouldn't have done that. But all in all, that is the only mistake I made and that went on for only about a week until the mum told me off.
The evening before I left French family, Pascale (I'm sick of using their initials, I don't care if they somehow in the one-in-a-thousand-chance found this blog), the mother, still hadn't paid me. She asked to make a bank transfer of my pay to my Australian bank account. At first, being the non-assertive-say-yes-to-everything fool I was, I agreed. Luckily, I soon changed my mind and told her I was short on cash so needed the euros (which was actually true, I had only about 80 euros left on me at that point). I don't know how Pascale could have been that disrespectful or irresponsible, but she was. She should have had 338 euros ready for me days before she had to pay me. Also, I don't agree with her logic that au pairs should be paid after they do their work. I think I should have been paid either the full amount at the beginning of the month or half the amount at the beginning and half at the end. Because otherwise it made me feel like I wasn't receiving any money for my work, and it really demotivated me especially as I didn't really trust Pascale at that point. Pascale then claimed she needed to go to the ATM (which I seriously doubted. What idiot with 3 kids, one epileptic, doesn't have 300 euros on them in cash around the house?). And apparently she had to wait for N, the dad, to come home before she could go, even though I would have watched T, the baby, and A, the new au pair, was already going to watch M and A, the older kids, anyway. Pascale claimed she would slip my pay under my door the NIGHT BEFORE I was due to leave the family, and I half thought she wouldn't do it and I'd have to wake her up in the middle of the night to demand it. Luckily, the next morning I did receive that envelope, but with at least 28 euros short of what she owed me (not even counting the extra hours I'd worked), along with a rude note claiming I hadn't worked 30 hours that week, which I didn't read until I was in Bonn unfortunately. Otherwise I would have written her another rude note back listing all the things wrong with her and the way she treats au pairs.
Because she never offered to give me a lift to the airport, I chose to take the bus instead. The taxi company I never really figured out how to confirm my booking with them, and there are a lot of dodgy people in France so I wasn't even sure if it was a legit company as the family didn't live in a Parisian arrondissement but in another town altogether on the outskirts of Paris. I woke up at 4:30, walked the 10 minutes to the bus station by myself with two suitcases weighing 20+kg each, a 12kg duffle bag and 6kg backpack. Luckily this kind man saw me struggling and helped me wheel a suitcase to the station, and another kind man loaded my things onto the bus for me. Which, by the way, the bus only cost 1.33 euros to the airport!!! I was able to use one of my carnet tickets. Despite all the other sucky things about my French au pair experience, the location, Chelles, was pretty awesome. Then I had to get the subway to the right terminal and another bus to the correct check in counter. I managed to hide the duffle bag on a random waiting seat (because the airport wasn't that busy early in the morning), and the woman didn't notice I had an extra overweight bag. All in all, my airport experience went pretty smoothly. The flight was delayed about 45 minutes and couldn't land in Cologne because of strong winds, so I ended up in Düsseldorf. What a great start in Germany, making A, my new host mum, wait for ages at the airport. Anyway, long story short, she paid 180 euros for me to take the taxi from Düsseldorf to Bonn.
And that was the promising beginning of what I hope will be a good year-long experience in Germany.
I typed that in French with almost no help from google translator. If I can name just one benefit from my time with that French family, it would definitely be my vast improvement in the French language. Listening, reading, writing, speaking, all of it has improved so much in just 2 months. What I learnt in high school, a lot of it all came back to me and I learnt some really essential things too that just wouldn't have sunk into my mind if I hadn't stayed in France for almost 2 months. Anyway, I didn't have to say goodbye to Paris just yet because I'm actually going back there in about 2 weeks time on my Contiki tour.
I have to admit, updating this blog now almost gives me peace of mind because more than anything else at the moment, I am scared of losing my English writing skills, strange enough as that sounds. The essay writing skills I had developed by the end of year 12 were the one thing that enabled me to do things like fluke the SOR I paper with a 49/50 through 30 minutes of study in the car despite not having practised a single SOR question since trials. And now that I have once again reconsidered my career path (international relations/law at ANU instead of international studies/journalism at UNSW), I will really have to start trying not to let my writing skills get too rusty. The fact that no one reads this blog because I changed the settings to private doesn't matter. I mean there's way too many things on this blog that could get me into deep shit with the wrong people (although those people don't matter to me in life so it's not like I would care anyways). This blog is for me and myself only. Well, who knows. This could all be nothing more than a fleeting memory in five years time.
I'm in a hotel room with a king and single bed and an awesome bathroom all to myself in a little village called Serfaus in Austria. The hotel I am staying at, the Löwe, is a 'kinderhotel' which means they make a huge effort to cater to children. Free pram rental, kids buffet at each meal, free childcare, playcenter, waterpark, unlimited bibs and Hipp baby food (I am quite well acquainted with European baby food brands after dealing with T in France), none of the dirty looks that usually tend to get thrown at screaming kids in hotel restaurants. Anyway, this is a pretty different scenario to my last night in Chelles, France. I think all in all I ended up working 10-15 hours extra for that horrid French family. I know because I kept track of each and every single hour I worked for them, and I had a pretty impressively detailed system going on. I even factored in things like not having the promised wi-fi for so many days straight, not given enough to eat, being made to babysit at 11:30pm, etc, and deducted working hours accordingly based on what I thought was fair. Granted, I didn't deduct that many hours for the wi-fi and food issue, because I was pretty bad the first couple of weeks too. I'd babysit T whilst going on my laptop and phone, which I will admit was not the appropriate, professional thing to do and I shouldn't have done that. But all in all, that is the only mistake I made and that went on for only about a week until the mum told me off.
The evening before I left French family, Pascale (I'm sick of using their initials, I don't care if they somehow in the one-in-a-thousand-chance found this blog), the mother, still hadn't paid me. She asked to make a bank transfer of my pay to my Australian bank account. At first, being the non-assertive-say-yes-to-everything fool I was, I agreed. Luckily, I soon changed my mind and told her I was short on cash so needed the euros (which was actually true, I had only about 80 euros left on me at that point). I don't know how Pascale could have been that disrespectful or irresponsible, but she was. She should have had 338 euros ready for me days before she had to pay me. Also, I don't agree with her logic that au pairs should be paid after they do their work. I think I should have been paid either the full amount at the beginning of the month or half the amount at the beginning and half at the end. Because otherwise it made me feel like I wasn't receiving any money for my work, and it really demotivated me especially as I didn't really trust Pascale at that point. Pascale then claimed she needed to go to the ATM (which I seriously doubted. What idiot with 3 kids, one epileptic, doesn't have 300 euros on them in cash around the house?). And apparently she had to wait for N, the dad, to come home before she could go, even though I would have watched T, the baby, and A, the new au pair, was already going to watch M and A, the older kids, anyway. Pascale claimed she would slip my pay under my door the NIGHT BEFORE I was due to leave the family, and I half thought she wouldn't do it and I'd have to wake her up in the middle of the night to demand it. Luckily, the next morning I did receive that envelope, but with at least 28 euros short of what she owed me (not even counting the extra hours I'd worked), along with a rude note claiming I hadn't worked 30 hours that week, which I didn't read until I was in Bonn unfortunately. Otherwise I would have written her another rude note back listing all the things wrong with her and the way she treats au pairs.
Because she never offered to give me a lift to the airport, I chose to take the bus instead. The taxi company I never really figured out how to confirm my booking with them, and there are a lot of dodgy people in France so I wasn't even sure if it was a legit company as the family didn't live in a Parisian arrondissement but in another town altogether on the outskirts of Paris. I woke up at 4:30, walked the 10 minutes to the bus station by myself with two suitcases weighing 20+kg each, a 12kg duffle bag and 6kg backpack. Luckily this kind man saw me struggling and helped me wheel a suitcase to the station, and another kind man loaded my things onto the bus for me. Which, by the way, the bus only cost 1.33 euros to the airport!!! I was able to use one of my carnet tickets. Despite all the other sucky things about my French au pair experience, the location, Chelles, was pretty awesome. Then I had to get the subway to the right terminal and another bus to the correct check in counter. I managed to hide the duffle bag on a random waiting seat (because the airport wasn't that busy early in the morning), and the woman didn't notice I had an extra overweight bag. All in all, my airport experience went pretty smoothly. The flight was delayed about 45 minutes and couldn't land in Cologne because of strong winds, so I ended up in Düsseldorf. What a great start in Germany, making A, my new host mum, wait for ages at the airport. Anyway, long story short, she paid 180 euros for me to take the taxi from Düsseldorf to Bonn.
And that was the promising beginning of what I hope will be a good year-long experience in Germany.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Au revoir
I honestly cannot wait to leave now. The host family is becoming only just marginally tolerable. Sitting on the couch in the living room babysitting M and T as I type this on my iPhone. I leave the day after tomorrow and have already worked my 30 hours for this week so now I've gone over. I hope the mum is home soon so I can subtly confront her about my work schedule. Today she told me off for leaving A last night when he was still awake. I was meant to stay with him for 40 minutes after he fell asleep in case he had a seizure. Which was total bull because as far as I know, he doesn't consistently get watched each night so it's kind of like, why would you randomly choose tonight to make me watch him after he falls asleep? It was sort of like she asked me to just because she could. Plus it was 11:30pm which I thought was a really inconsiderate time to keep asking me to babysit. How long would A take to fall asleep, was I meant to stay with him until 1am if need be?
I'm even more annoyed now because today I took A to some psychologist in another town and we had to catch the train back home but I wasn't given any train fare for either of us. When we got home the mum asked about the train ride and all but never offered to pay me back for it. So a few minutes ago I gave her the receipt for the tickets and was like, 'it was 10 euros, but it's ok you can give it to me when you pay me' and she just nodded and kind of said nothing. It is a pet peeve of mine when people are inconsiderate and don't pay others back straightaway. I hate borrowing money from people in general and always pay them back as soon as I can. I don't get people who hold it off because it just looks rude/stingy like they are trying to get away with not paying someone back or something.
Anyhow, needless to say I am very much looking forward to leaving for Bonn. This French family needs to mind my work hours and not think they can just exploit me for the next few days, because although on the surface it is the family that provides the roof over my head and my food, if you dig deeper the au pair always has the power. Always. I'm the one living in their house with their possessions and looking after their kids, so if those are the most important things in the family's life that I am around, then they need to watch how they treat me these last couple of days. I can be a complete passive aggressive almost psychopathic bitch when I get really upset or angry at someone, and that's all I'm going to say about that. Also, I've had more negative things to say about the family to Al (the new au pair) than positive things.
Plus side, having the second au pair in the house is much better than I anticipated. Al is 18 and British. Nice enough and reminds me a bit of myself in terms of how she interacts with the family. So far we have complained to each other like crazy about P the host mum as well as the kids to a lesser extent. I've explained to her things the host mum never offered to, like how to use the washing machine and dryer, where the toilet paper is, where the language classes are, the deal with there being no internet all the time, best places to walk in town, how to get a Navigo card, etc. I wish I had someone to explain all that to me when I first came, so because Al is really nice, I'm trying my best to almost be the sole host family 'member' that is actually making her feel welcome. Having Al here makes me feel way better because it makes me realise I'm not insane in terms of noticing and complaining about all the things wrong with this family, because she feels the exact same way.
Still, after everything, I don't regret coming here for the past 2 months. 12 months I would have clawed my eyes out, but 2 months of shit in exchange for exploring Paris is marginally worth it. Wandering around Montmartre and climbing Sacre-Coeur to reach my favourite spot in all of Paris makes everything okay. Maybe my next post will be more positive in terms of what I actually visited these past two months.
Anyhow, needless to say I am very much looking forward to leaving for Bonn. This French family needs to mind my work hours and not think they can just exploit me for the next few days, because although on the surface it is the family that provides the roof over my head and my food, if you dig deeper the au pair always has the power. Always. I'm the one living in their house with their possessions and looking after their kids, so if those are the most important things in the family's life that I am around, then they need to watch how they treat me these last couple of days. I can be a complete passive aggressive almost psychopathic bitch when I get really upset or angry at someone, and that's all I'm going to say about that. Also, I've had more negative things to say about the family to Al (the new au pair) than positive things.
Plus side, having the second au pair in the house is much better than I anticipated. Al is 18 and British. Nice enough and reminds me a bit of myself in terms of how she interacts with the family. So far we have complained to each other like crazy about P the host mum as well as the kids to a lesser extent. I've explained to her things the host mum never offered to, like how to use the washing machine and dryer, where the toilet paper is, where the language classes are, the deal with there being no internet all the time, best places to walk in town, how to get a Navigo card, etc. I wish I had someone to explain all that to me when I first came, so because Al is really nice, I'm trying my best to almost be the sole host family 'member' that is actually making her feel welcome. Having Al here makes me feel way better because it makes me realise I'm not insane in terms of noticing and complaining about all the things wrong with this family, because she feels the exact same way.
Still, after everything, I don't regret coming here for the past 2 months. 12 months I would have clawed my eyes out, but 2 months of shit in exchange for exploring Paris is marginally worth it. Wandering around Montmartre and climbing Sacre-Coeur to reach my favourite spot in all of Paris makes everything okay. Maybe my next post will be more positive in terms of what I actually visited these past two months.
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| Gorgeous view from Sacre-Coeur |
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| Sacre-Coeur, my favourite spot in all of Paris |
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