Typical Day

76 days!

In this post I'm gonna describe how a normal work day looks like for me :)

Spoiler: it's not really exciting :p

6.12am

My alarm goes off. Yes, at exactly 6.12am, because that was my alarm for school. Then I check my phone and my 200 new messages ... Hahaha I wish. Not that many.

I usually stay in bed till 6.42am and then I'm getting ready for the day! I'm not really a morning person, I need my time to wake up and to make me look like a person again :p

7.30am

Going downstairs for breakfast. 

I eat either cereal or bread with Nutella. Although American Nutella is not as good as German Nutella. Sometimes I feel like Frodo here, you know that scene in Lord of the Rings when Sam is like "Frodo, think of the strawberries" and Frodo says he doesn't remember anymore how strawberries taste like? I'm Frodo. I forget how German things taste or look and that's driving me crazy.

8am

Work starts! Actually already 7.50am or something, because at that time my hostparents leave with my girl for school.

Then it depends on my baby boy. Sometimes he's really tired so I'm bringing him to bed right away and sometimes he's not. So I either read books with him or play with him till he is tired so that I can bring him to bed. I actually sing him to sleep and every day I wonder how he can fall asleep like that because I can't sing. I love to sing, but like my mom once said: "Some people should just not sing".

8.30am - between 10 and 11

Nap time = best time! When my boy sleeps, most of the time I'm doing something on the Internet or I'm ironing my clothes or washing the dishes (and feeling like a real housewife omg I'm not 40 yet!).

After nap time - 2pm

I try to go out of the house every day with my boy.

Sometimes we're just taking a walk (I force him to walk so at the end, he's always screaming cause he's a lazy boy but he really needs some exercise) or we're going to the playground or doing stuff that I need to do like sending a package to Germany or something. The best thing is when we're meeting other Au pairs and their kids because then, it's not boring for me. Because taking walks every day just gets boring at some point.

Around 12, we have lunch. Normally, I heat up leftovers or buy something. He eats everything when he's hungry.

Till 2 (or sometimes 3) we just play or he's playing and I'm watching him play. (Shhht, he doesn't care what's on the TV so sometimes I watch a movie while he is playing).

2pm or some days 3pm

Picking my girl up from school! And feeling like a mother / housewife / 40 year old again. Oh well. Surely I am the coolest parent in school, HA! Nah the others are nice too. But it's really weird when people think that I'm their mother. Sometimes strangers on the street tell me how cute my children are. Well, thank you, but I didn't get a child when I was 13 years old. 

After school, we either go to her ballett class and my boy and I are waiting till it's over or we are going home and doing something there. Draw or read or play or watch a movie (I'm a barbie expert by now. Also my girl only likes movies with princesses in it. She doesn't like The Lion King because she doesn't like lions. I try to make her watch the good stuff, because she's really missing out!).

Sometimes we bake. Everybody loves my German cakes. It's only difficult to get the correct ingredients because they don't have a lot of German baking ingredients here which is really weird. For examply they don't know Quark. But luckily I found some! Although it was only a little bit.

5pm

End of work! YES!

Now I'm going to the gym or meeting other Au pairs or just relaxing at home.

Blast from the past

69 days!

Last week, I went to a German Au pair's house and she has a huge TV with actual channels! So we watched Keeping up with the Kardashians. Not the best program, but yay TV !!

Apart from that, last weekend was absolutely great again.

A friend I know from High School back in Germany came to visit me. She's stuyding in Boston at the moment, so she took the bus to Syracuse and I picked her up Friday night.

It was like nothing changed. I've been here for only two months yet but it feels like so much more. So I guess not much changed, except from the continent :p

On Saturday, we drove with another Au pair to Syracuse again because my friend told me she didn't go shopping yet and SHE'S NEVER BEEN TO THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY. OhMyGod.

So we spent the day in the mall and got new clothes (no idea how to get all of that stuff back to Germany) and ate cheesecake. So. Good. I just can't believe how good that cheesecake is. And why we don't have it in Europe.

In Ithaca, we ate at Taco Bell. Another first time for me!

On Sunday, we took my hostparents' camera on our walk through Ithaca and at the end of the day, we had more than 1.000 photos, I am not kidding.

First we went to the Farmer's Market and then to Ithaca Falls which are close to my house.

Rumpelstiltskin

We went the Cascadilla Trail up to Cornell, had lunch at Collegetown Bagels and walked around Cornell. We even climbed up the tower on campus and had a beautiful view over Ithaca and the lake.

I feel like my English is not the best today, so I apologize for any mistakes :p

In the evening, we drove to Purity to eat the best ice cream in town! And then we looked through the +1000 photos and we definitely didn't get enough sleep.

On Monday we walked to the lake, to Aldi and then to the Commons. Yes, a lot of walking. And a lot of eating. Part of the commons was evacuated cause apparently there was a bomb threat. In Ithaca! But nothing happened.

In the evening, we drove to Starbucks and watched our favorite German TV series at home.

Oh, by the way, Monday was a holiday - Columbus day. So I didn't have to work.

Tuesday, unfortunately, I had to bring her back to Syracuse. Even the weather was appropriate. It was warm and sunny all weekend long, but on Tuesday it started raining when we were in the car.

The goodbye at the bus station was quite terrible for me. It felt a bit like at the airport in Berlin when I came here.

You know, Ithaca is not bad. Sometimes it gets quite boring ... But I have this wonderful hostfamily and my Aupair buddies. Nevertheless it's not the same as with a friend you've known for 8 years. This place felt more like home last weekend ... Oh, well. I survived the week, it's weekend again, time to have fun!

Sending love to wherever you are,

Christin xo

Trip to New York City !!

57 days!

Last Friday I went with my hostmom, the kids and a Swedish Aupair to NYC. It was SO great.

We left at 11.30am on Friday. I had to drive because my hostmom still doesn't have her driver's license and Michelle (Swedish Aupair) isn't insured with our car. Google Maps said it's gonna take 4h30. It took us 6h30.

We drove through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We made a lunch break in a McDonald's and it was my first time in an American McDonald's. Let me tell you: German McDonald's is better. Michelle said it's because here, they can put everything they want in the food. Yay European laws!

At some point, it started raining and driving here gets so much worse when it's raining. You can't really see the lines on the streets and it's really not pleasant. Especially not with two screaming children in the car.

We had to drive through Manhattan cause we slept in my hostmom's aunt's house who lives on Long Island. We crossed two bridges and on every bridge, you have to pay a toll. I think for the first one it was 14$ and for the second one 8$. NYC ain't cheap.

So we finally arrived at 6pm.

We had to hurry up a lot because we had tickets for a concert in Madison Square Garden at 8pm.

Michelle and I took the Long Island Railroad from Manhasset to Penn Station which is directly next to Madison Square Garden. We were freezing our asses off cause it was so cold and still raining and we wore short clothes. But it was worth it cause we were clearly the hottest chicks in Manhattan!

Just kidding.

There were three support acts: Alex Metric, AlunaGeorge and Madeon. I only knew the second one, because she has one popular song which she played at the end of her performance so I only knew it was her at the very end. Madeon is also a DJ and when he performed, we thought that he was the main act cause our seats were quite far away from the stage. He played only one hour and we didn't know any of the songs and we were like "what is this shitty concert" but then we noticed that he was only the third support act :p

ZEDD was so extremely AWESOME.

It wasn't the best concert I've ever been to (nothing beats 30 Seconds to Mars) but maybe directly after Mars. It was just so much fun, I can't even. The music was great. The videos in the background were just overwhelming. The whole experience was so completely amazing!

Some videos for you to understand my enthusiasm:

Opening (including Beautiful Now): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl2JBkQ6tds

Clarity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDXxkfgLmRU

Last song (Alive): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm_DnuNjdgg

Afterwards, there were two guys who asked us if we want to go to some after concert party with them and we said that we're not 21 yet and they asked if we don't have fake IDs. Apparently it's normal to have one here. Sorry to disappoint ^^

On Saturday, we already got up at 6am cause we had tickets for the Statue of Liberty at 10am. So I had 3 hours of sleep. OhMyGod and I don't know how I survived Saturday and Sunday, probably NYC air plus adrenalin.

So we took the Long Island Railroad and the subway to Battery Park.

It was cold. It was raining. It was windy. It was an awful day concerning the weather. Concerning everything else, it was perfect.

The Statue of Liberty is pretty neat. It looks like in the movies (like everything in NYC). We just went to the island, took photos and went back to Manhattan. We skipped the audio tour and Ellis Island because of the weather and because we didn't want to go into a museum.

Foggy skyline from the ferry

Then, we walked to the 9/11 memorial.

In the picture on the left you can see the One World Trade Center. Although you can't see the top because it was just too cloudy!

The 9/11 memorial is really very impressive. I had goosebumps. Just thinking about what happened there and seeing all the names of the people who died there ... I can't even describe the feeling.

Afterwards, we walked to the Brooklyn Bridge.

I always wanted to see that thing, it was nice to finally be able to do that.

windy

Then we wanted to go to Times Square, but we didn't want to walk cause we were freezing and we thought about buying hats and gloves, so it was really terrible weather to walk in the city. So we took one of the famous yellow cabs to Grand Central Station. Looks like Gossip Girl! Ha! It's just crazy.

We had lunch at The Hard Rock Café and went to some shops at Times Square.

Around 4pm we walked to and through Central Park to get to another relative's house who lives in the Upper Eastside. That sounds fancy, but it was a pretty normal apartment. The cool thing was the view (they had a big balcony) and the guy in the entrance who kind of welcomes you and asks the people who live there if they're waiting for visitors.

So at their apartment, we also met my hostmom and the kids again and some other family members. We had nachos with the best guacamole ever! And chili. It was my first chili and they had two versions: the normal one which is spicy and the children's one which is "mild". So I chose the children's one (better be careful) and it was totally spicy for me. Good decision :p

After dinner, we went into the city again. The relatives dropped us off close to 5th avenue so we could look at all the cool shops (Prada, Chanel - that kind of stuff). Unfortunately, they were already closed ;)

NYC in the night is not really dark. The sky is not dark. There are so many lights! It looks so cool.

Rockefeller Center

Michelle and I went to the top of Rockefeller Center again. I already did that when I was in NYC during my Orientation Days, but I needed to it during the nights because of the view. It was so much worth it.

On Our way back to Penn Station, we passed Times Square again.

We had Red Velvet cake from Magnolia Bakery and took some photos with Spiderman. Casual NYC night.

I slept till 8.30 on Sunday, but my legs hurt from walking around all day on Saturday and head hurt and I felt so terrible. Michelle too. But I had to drive back and I absolutely did not want to do that! Plus I still had to do an assignment for college when we arrived in Ithaca.

omg no make up

But the ride back here was better. The weather was good (of course it was only bad when we were in NYC) and it was kinda more relaxed. We powered up with Twixx Ice Cream and Red Bull.

It was such a great weekend! 

Although the weather was bad and the ride to NYC was just terrible, I'd do it again every day.

NYC is such a cool city.

But - although I love NYC - Berlin is better. I really like Berlin more. I don't know, NYC is just SO MUCH. It's like throwing stuff in your face the whole time. Berlin is more chill. NYC reminded me of how much I miss Berlin. Berlin, du bist so wunderbar ... 

P.S.: I am listening to German radio and just as I finished typing, this song about Germany came on:

Sido - Wiese vor dem Reichstag