October
My first month as an Au Pair in Germany has come to an end and this is how it went:
My sister often says that sleeping in cars is my superpower. Sadly, this talent does not transfer to planes. My flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik was about nine hours of overnight flight time and I slept for maybe three or fours hours. Some may be able to function on that amount, but not me. I had a quick transfer to my last flight to Munich, which again, no sleep. I landed in Munich at 3pm local time and I was exhausted. My host father picked me up from the airport and drove us to their house, just south of Munich. On the way he made sure to point out things like the soccer arena and the olympic park. Seeing as I have been to Munich before these were all familiar views, which was settling in a way. My new environment isn’t completely new.
So far my biggest adjustment this last month had been dinner time. After spending the last four months adhering to a strict 5:30pm meal time, anything else was bound to throw me off. In Germany, they tend to eat their final meal around 7 or 8pm. This is something that I am still adjusting to. The first week flew by as the kids were at their mothers and thus not here, giving me ample time to settle in. I made an appearance at the final weekend of Oktoberfest, just walking around the fairgrounds. As one can imagine, it was just a lot of drunk Germans drinking more beer. Okay, it was cool to walk through and see everything, but I definitely more drunk people in one place than I ever had before.
Later in the week I managed to leave the house. This was after I finally started sleeping and eating a normal amount; I felt more human at this point. I ended up going into the old town and taking a walking tour. Most of the things we saw and spoke of, I had already learned about when I first came to Munich in 2016. Still, it was good to see everything again. I ended up meeting these two British girls who were half way through a three month tour around Europe. We ended up chatting over coffee half way through the tour and ended up going to lunch together after the tour. The three of us also went to a museum, my favorite, after lunch. It was all a good time and it was nice to chat with some people around my age.
I meet the two kids the next day and they spent their weekend with us. On that Sunday I went with my host father, his partner, and the youngest kid to brunch with the partner’s family. It ended up being the most Bavarian experience I’ve ever had, because who else would serve beer at a breakfast? We had a very traditional meal with weißwurst, pretzels, potato salad, cheese, mustard, grapes, and figs. Around the table they were speaking a mixture of German and English, as they had visiting cousins from Canada there. It was nice that I wasn’t the only non-German speaking person at the table. Later on we moved to their patio where we continued to eat. We had zwetschgenkuchen, a fig cake, which was delicious and some coffee as well.
That same night I got in touch with Lily, a friend from college, who is also an au pair in Europe right now. We made plans for the upcoming weekend since the kids would be at their mothers again. So, the next weekend I hopped on a bus and headed off to Innsbruck, Austria. We spent a couple days there before getting on a train to Salzburg, Austria (i.e. my favorite city in the world). We had an amazing time in both cities. We saw some castles, ate great food, and were able to catch up since we hadn’t seen each other in four months. Seeing a familiar face has never been for settling. It was a wonderful time and we’re planning on doing a couple other trips together while we’re both in Europe.
That's all for now, see you in a month!
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