For easter, the entire family has gone up near the Dutch border to visit the kids' grandparents, so I have the entire house to myself. It feels a bit lonely, but awesome at the same time. I have only had a few social conversations with anyone since being in Europe. A, the au pair after me in Paris, was my age and we got along pretty well but it's not like we became friends or anything seeing as I was leaving anyway. Then there was S, the family in Bonn's previous au pair who I didn't connect with at all because she and I are just polar opposites. Plus she was 25, and a 7 year age gap is pretty big. I always felt like she was judging me too, and of course old host mum An would have bitched about me to her so she'd already formed a judgementally negative opinion of me. Then there is Z, this family's previous au pair, who is 23 and nice but I'm still the polar opposite of her too. She's into the whole drug, alcohol, sex, party scene and despite Berlin's reputation, I really didn't come here to smoke pot or go to wild clubs. There's a time and place for that, and when I take into consideration what I want, a gap year overseas just doesn't involve this for me. H is an au pair, also 23, that I met through my host mum's friend. She reminds me so much of Ro from high school, it's really uncanny. Maybe it's because Ro was Indian (or Punjabi, as she likes to point out), and H is Sri Lankan. But H too is not really my type. She's super extroverted and a self proclaimed 'people person', and like Z she smokes (and scarily enough hasn't told her host mum yet...I mean you can't hide that from her for an entire year). She's also done drugs and partied in Berlin when she was an exchange student here, but doesn't seem to be as heavily into that stuff as Z. Also like Z, she dabbled in arts at university and now has no idea what the hell she is doing. Looks like the 'you want fries with that' stereotype regarding arts really is accurate. I guess it's hard, because people like me don't really go on gap years or au pair. Usually it's the super bubbly, extroverted, rebellious, slightly older partier.
I actually really wouldn't mind going home at this point. Ok, except for the fact that I have to face everyone else being at uni and me just doing nothing. But right now, me living in Germany is slightly pointless other than the fact that I can try to better myself here before going back home. After all, I can just as easily learn German in Sydney because I could still sort of mooch of my mum's money and ask her to pay for German intensives. I think the whole 'immersion' experience only works in a foreign country if you already understand some of the language. For example, my French improved by leaps and bounds because I could expand on what I already knew, but it's not the same when I don't know a single word of German. Heck I don't even like the German language, it sounds really unappealing and just not very pleasant to the ear, which makes me less motivated to learn it. Plus I may as well be in Sydney to earn some major cash and put the spare time to good use. I would have earned a lot actually over a year, considering I was tutoring/teaching piano to a few kids before I left which already paid pretty well, and with an extra full time job on the side I would have earned some good money for the move to Canberra. After passing that piano diploma exam in year 11 which is like the piano world equivalent of a bachelor's degree, I may even have been able to get a job at a proper music studio. Because let's face it, no one (unless you're from Bosnia, Colombia, Moldova or something) actually au pairs to earn money...au pairs are always, always short on money because I earn next to nothing seeing as my board, lodging, transport and phone plan are paid for. Damn it I should have stayed in Sydney and enrolled at ANU for second semester entry. If I get rejected for a visa in June, I wouldn't mind going back home (except for the nasty plane ticket cost). The only plus side to this whole au pairing experience so far has probably been how it's satiated my curiosity about Europe, killed the travel bug obsession I had going on, and it's taught me a whole lot of skills in terms of being more independent and even managing a household. Things like budgeting for myself, grocery shopping for the family, cooking for the family, doing housework, finding my way around, learning how to live with difficult people, learning how to live with strangers. This is making me feel slightly better I guess, because there are always good things that come out of everything and despite all my doubts about the next 9 months, there have still been life skills learnt for me that are important and mean the world to me. Skills that really can't be learnt any other way and I wouldn't relinquish them for anything. The invaluable skills I've learnt and the important lessons I've experienced actually makes all the stress with host families worth it. I guess in a way, this is a whole big learning process and the things I have gotten out of this experience, whether good or bad, are way more important than starting uni a year earlier. I guess practical life skills can't even really be learnt in 5 years at uni, and au pairing actually prepares me for living on my own in Canberra for the next 5 years. I guess there is a part of me that truly believes there really are positives to this experience and that I am doing this to better myself, because otherwise I would not still be holding onto it, and determined enough to make this work after 2 fail families. Otherwise I would just have left for Sydney already, despite the 'I told you so' that my mum would probably inevitably greet me with when I return home. But a couple of people have affirmed that it is a big thing for me to be doing this at 17 and 18, and the problems I've had to solve, the issues and aspects that go with au pairing, I would never even have imagined as a naive year 12 girl searching up au pair websites in the library and telling everyone she was going to Finland for a year when she was supposed to be studying.
So I will not be returning home early, but I can still tell myself that even if I chose to do so, no one can judge me or say 'I told you so', unless they have experienced hitting rock bottom (well as rock bottom as an au pair can hit) at 17 or 18, totally alone in a new country overseas where they don't speak the language, criticised and judged for their personality every week by cold and distant host parents and then being dismissed/fired and faced with the possibility of returning back home as a failure. Because only then could anyone possible understand how hard it is. I haven't even told my mum or grandpa yet that I moved to Berlin 3 weeks ago (my mum is so muddled and absentminded that she can't even recall I was in Bonn to begin with, not Berlin).
On the plus side, if everything works out perfect for me until next January, I've already convinced my mum that I should meet her in Miami or New York (preferably the latter, although she would rather visit Miami) and go on a Caribbean cruise before flying to Shanghai and then back to Sydney. Wishful thinking perhaps, because the plane tickets from here to Miami and then back to Sydney are freaking expensive. But I really want to go on a cruise...that would be my perfect idea of a holiday. Lounging on a large private balcony, snorkelling in the caribbean...it just sounds so, so nice. Plus I am kind of obsessed with visiting the US again seeing as I sort of expected I would go with the old host family to New York in July, so I even have some extra US currency with me.
Sometimes I forget how pissed I was at my mum before I left for Europe, or how screwed up things are between us and how hard the HSC was on me. How much better I could have done. I just hate myself sometimes because I got 88 in English, 89 in Music 2 and 89 in History, and if I just got a 90 in those three subjects (that's FOUR marks more), it would have been good enough to do Law at UNSW and I would have made the all-rounders list and I wouldn't have made the mistake of coming to Europe for a year and I wouldn't have done absolutely disappointedly bad in the HSC and everything would have been ok.
Seriously, I need to change the title of this blog because I'm not even into travelling anymore. After that Contiki trip I've just been sick of it. I'm kind of losing sight of why I wanted to au pair in the first place. Funny, because Anja the bitchy mum from Bonn actually said the same thing. She was like 'sometimes I'm not sure why you wanted to be an au pair'. Because I clearly don't like kids and all, I guess was what she was getting at. Most people either do it for the cultural experience (which would be useless for me because in that case I would have chosen France seeing as I already know some French, enough to get by). If I were doing it for the cultural/language immersion, Germany would be such a pointless choice for me. Other people au pair in order to travel, but as I already explained, I'm sick of that and really quite over it. Nowadays when I'm in Berlin and I see something photo-worthy I don't even bother taking a photo. I've barely even explored that much of Berlin and would prefer to spend my weekends at home (if it didn't make me seem like a weirdo to my host family). Big contrast to when I was au pairing in Paris and spent every second of my free time outside of the house. H keeps pressuring me to go to Prague with her but I don't think I want to. Just too much of a hassle changing currencies, and I don't even connect with H that much. Plus she would want to stay in a nasty mixed dorm hostel which really isn't my thing. Is it sad that if I were to go to Prague, my main reason would be so that I can add another country to my 'list of countries I've been to'? I guess that is kind of sad. But I really don't enjoy travelling and sightseeing anymore. Europe is just full of castles, palaces, art museums, canals, old city squares, cathedrals...they all kind of become similar and especially as I don't know the history of most of these cities it's hard to get into all the sightseeing. My favourite places I've visited so far are probably the beautiful sights in Paris (for the aesthetic beauty, not the history because I never learnt about French history), and interestingly enough the visit to Dachau concentration camp near Munich and the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam were the most incredible experiences so far. Venice too was gorgeous, but way too touristy in my opinion and the beauty of the canals and little stores got a bit old after only like an hour of walking around.
I feel like my posts have slowly turned into big rambling messes of jumbled up thoughts with no structure. I hope they don't reflect my diminishing writing skills after having been out of school for so long.
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| Trevi Fountain, Rome |
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| View of Pudong across the Huangpu River from the Bund, Shanghai |
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| Innsbruck, Austria |
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