Ithaca

One week USA!

Here I am, sitting on my hostfamily's couch.

During the past few days, so many things happened! I don't know where I am supposed to begin.

So I arrived here last Thursday at 11pm. My hostdad picked me up from the bus station and brought me home. My hostmom was still awake to welcome me and they were soo nice but I was just tired and only wanted to go to bed. 

The next day, they let me sleep in. 

I was so excited to see the children for the first time! At the beginning, both were a bit shy, but it gets better from day to day. Sometimes it feels like I'm already here for ages, but it's only 4 days!

Saturday we got some stuff for my room which was mostly empty because my family moved in this house like 3 weeks ago. My room also gets better from day to day. I put some photos on the wall, I have a bed (the first night I slept on an air mattress) and I finally had time to unpack my stuff.

Here in Ithaca, there are what feels like a thousand waterfalls. So we were also at one of these, because it's so HOT right now. My room is under the roof, so sometimes it feels like hell in here. I'm so glad that I have air conditioning here.

Saturday we ran around in town all day. We were also in Collegetown, which is like a part of the city and where the college is! You didn't see that coming, huh? It's so beautiful up there! You can see the Cayuga Lake which is one of the Finger Lakes and it's really cool. We also visited a museum, but we went there mostly for the view. Oh and we ate ice cream at a pharmacy. We had small scoops, but they were huge! I wasn't able to eat up mine.

Yesterday I went shopping! All alone :p

I was at Urban Outfitters which is basically the only cool store here - wait, there are a few more - but this is the only "brand" store I found here so far. And as I stood in the store, I noticed that I forgot to look up the American sizes. So I just took my normal German size which was good, but the sizes for the pants are different and I'm still not sure which one I have.

In the afternoon, we went to the Cayuga lake. We met our neighbors there who are really nice people and there was even a girl my age. It was good to talk with her.

Before going home, we went grocery shopping at Wegman's. OhMyGod. That thing is huge. Even bigger than the small ice cream scoop! I got some sweets. And Nutella. I'm curious if it tastes like in Germany.

got a mug!

Today was my first real day of work.

It was good, I guess. I went with the kids to the playground and I even found it all alone!

pizza for lunch

Then the little boy had to take his nap so I brought the girl home and went for a walk with the boy. The walk took two hours. I was so exhausted! It was still so hot today. Ugh.

In the afternoon, we played with their toys that arrived today.

This evening, the grandparents came here and they'll stay for a few days. They're also so nice! The grandpa asked me if I'm really German because he didn't hear my accent. I was so happy when he said that! Although I have to admit that we only spoke a few words at that time.

Homesickness is an issue that I have to deal with.

Every morning it's the worst actually. Over the day it gets better. I hate the time difference!

Keeping you updated,

Christin xo

much  nature

much wow

Two Days Left

2 days left!

"Goodbyes are not forever,
goodbyes are not the end,
they simply mean I miss you,
until we meet again ... "

CAKE

So yesterday was my goodbye party with my friends. It was so much fun! To be honest I wasn't even sad - the sadness started today. Gosh, one year is quite a long time!
I got amazing presents, like (selfmade) diaries for the trip and even an America cake! Yummyyy
I am not even in the US, but I already miss my friends. The missing part sucks. I really really want to go to the US, but I'm so bad at saying goodbye.


Meanwhile, I figured out my three biggest fears at the moment.
1: I am worried that my friends will get other friends while I'm not here and when I'm back, they won't be my friends anymore ... Which is probably stupid cause there's still WhatsApp and Facebook and Skype, and I will also find new friends ... But I like my friends right now, please remember me! *monkey emoji that covers his eyes*
2: What if I don't like my city? (Ithaca, for those of you who forgot about that) Or my family? Well, actually there's also an easy answer here: I could change the family or come back home. But that's just a thing that's on my mind. I guess most Au pairs think about that. Let's hope everything will turn out fine *fingers crossed*
3 (and don't laugh at me): I am scared of gaining weight. I know, I know ... That's actually not such a big deal! I guess you can't even do something against that when you're new in America. So many delicious things to eat ! But I did my best to lose weight during the last few months so it would bother me a lot if that was in vain.

Sooo yeah. Maybe you think these fears are stupid or I don't know, but I just thought about what's making me nervous and I think these are the three main things. Except from those, I am looking forward to the US ! So much!

chaos

I am almost done with packing. There are only a few things left that need to be put in one of my pieces of baggage! I will take a big suitcase with me which is allowed to weigh 23kg (doing my best to stay under that limit) and my hand luggage will be a rucksack and a small suitcase. Let's hope I can pack away everything!




That's it for now. Phew. This night is the last night in which I can sleep as long as I want ... in my own bed. Gosh I'm gonna miss my bed! And my room! And my friends and my family! But right now, I am also missing something and I am not so sure what that is. I hope I can find that in the US.

Love,
Christin xo

Tick tock

One week left.

Seven days.

And I still can't believe it!

I one week, I am in New York City. Holy Guacamole.

This week, I am spending some days with my parents in our favorite hotel. We were on our way to dinner when I saw this fella:

European + American bear!

Coincidence? :p

Well, I have everything now. All of the documents, other stuff ... I already tried packing some things in  my suitcase and I think it will be wayyyyy heavier than 23kg (which is the weight that the airline allows). By the way, I'm flying with United Airlines!

I never thought that it's possible to be that happy and that scared at the same time. 

Christin xo

Embassy

49 days left!

Last Thursday I went to the American embassy in Berlin. My visa was approved!

At home I had to fill out a form online which included questions like "Are you a member of a terrorist organization?" We got instructions for this procedure so that helped me a lot. Then you have to pay the fee and make an appointment. 

A few days before my appointment, I got an e-mail from the embassy that said that they have technical problems and that it could be possible that they didn't register my appointment. Luckily that was not the case.

When I arrived at the embassy (30 minutes early), there was already a line. You have to go through a security check and you are not allowed to take any electronic devices inside the embassy. You can't take bags either, so basically everyone's standing there with their documents in plastic films. And there are security men everywhere.

Inside the embassy, you have to wait again. They take your fingerprints and you have a short "interview" with somebody from the embassy. Surprisingly, it was in German. He asked me why I want to go to the US, where I will go, if I already spoke with my host family, if they are kind and how the children are called. I think that didn't even take one minute. At the end, he said that my visa was approved and that they'll send it in a few days.

So this is done too.

Today I want to order some other things for the journey like adapters.

Some days I feel like I want to stay here, at home, forever. Other days I feel like I want to leave immediately. I can't wait! The clock's ticking.

Christin xo

American embassy in Berlin

Plotting and planning

54 days left!

I am as excited as ever.

I already got my international driver's license (which is basically only a translation of the German driver's license) and tomorrow I have an appointment in the American embassy in Berlin. The application for the visa is veeeery complicated. I am so  glad that I got instructions from my organization!

the hoodie

I also got a hoodie for free because I applied during a certain period of time. Yay!

I think I finally realized that I am really going to the US.
On one side, I am so so so happy! My family is perfect and I will live 4 hours away from New York (which is not THAT close but still quite close). So I am really looking forward to going there.
On the other side, I already know that I will miss my family and friends in Germany so much! One year is quite a lot of time.
I think these are struggles that every Au pair has to face. I am in touch with other girls who also fly to the US on August 10th and it's good to talk with them about everything. We are already wavering over what to bring to the US and stuff like that. Packing ain't easy! :p

Apart from all that, I am almost done with my final exams.

Everything's so exciting! A lot of new things are coming, old things go. Times of change.

Christin xo

Surprise!

It's 11.19pm and I am in shock.

I skyped with the interested family from 8pm till 8.45pm.
At first, all of them were there (parents and two children) and I was SO excited, I was shaking. I thought I'll get a heart attack when they call. Well, I almost did. But they were so nice! The baby had to go to bed soon and the girl got bored at some point, so most of the time I spoke with the parents.
They asked me some questions, for example what I would do in a certain situation, why I want to become an Au pair, but also what food I can't eat. We talked about a loooot of things. I was afraid that they don't understand me, but they said that my English is very good. Yay!
I had a very positive feeling during the whole call.
At the end, they said that I am the last Au pair that they wanted to speak to and that they will probably decide quickly who they want to hire and that they will write me.

I thought they mean tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.

They wrote half an hour later.

Now it's 11.33pm and I still can't believe it. Holy Guacamole.

The family is perfect! I am so so so excited!

Suddenly everything becomes real. Before, becoming an Au pair was a dream and an option and now I am an Au pair with a wonderful family!

And I will go to the US in eight weeks. We didn't fix a certain date yet, but they said they need me from the beginning of August on. Oh my God. Eight weeks is not much. And there's so much to do!

I can't believe it. But I can't sleep either! So so so excited.

To be honest I didn't even answer them yet because I was so surprised and excited! Oh wow. Does this really happen right now?

(a completely agitated)
Christin xo

Interview

Yesterday I had my interview with a woman from the organization, my counselor. I was quite nervous although people told me that the interview is very easy and that there's nothing to worry about. But, oh well, that's me. Always worrying about everything :p

So I drove to my counselor's house and I was half an hour early. You know, better too early than too late. But I stayed in the car till 5 to 9 which I thought seemed punctual, but not too early. I met my counselor before and my first impression of her was confirmed yesterday: she's a very kind person.
She even gave me slippers and a glass of water.

The interview started with some kind of psychological test. It consisted of 171 questions that I had to answer with A: Right B: ? or C: Not right. Oh, and it was in German, so no potential vocabulary problems. The questions were very easy and my counselor told me that I shouldn't think too long about the answer and just tick what came to my mind first. One of the questions was: "I am interested in cars and planes". Yeah. Right.

The next part of the interview was a conversation between the two of us in English. My counselor's job was to take notes about my answers because she has to write some kind of report about me that the host families will see later. Her first question was: "Who are you?" Quite easy. I thought that the more I say, the more she can write so I just told her everything that came to my mind.
Things she also asked me about:

• My family
• My school
• What I'm doing in my free time
• If I'm doing sport and if yes, what
• What I do to help my parents in the household
• What I want to do after school (apart from becoming an Au pair)
• Why I want to become an Au pair
• Why I want to go to the USA
• Qualities that I think an Au pair should have
• Why I will be a good Au pair

I think that's it. We talked quite a lot, but I didn't even notice that. Like I said, she was very nice and we also made jokes and I explained the movie "Divergent" to her. The English was no problem, because I'm quite used to speaking or writing in English. When I didn't know a specific word, she helped me, so that was no problem at all.

Then we changed to German again and checked my application. I had to change some things, including my profile pic. HA! So much worry about it and now I'm taking a different one. It has to be one where my face is bigger because the photo will be very small for the families.

Now I'm waiting for my profile to be unlocked. 

Then, the host families can see me.

It's getting interesting.

Step by Step

~ I've been dreaming of things yet to come ~

I finally have everything that I need for my application.

Although I am quite sick at the moment, I visited an Au pair meeting yesterday where people from the organization explained a lot of things concerning the application and the family finding process. It was totally worth it! I got to know other Au pairs and so called "returnees" who already spent a year in the US and told us about their experiences.

To cut a long story short, everything is quite complicated (concerning the visa and insurances etc), but the meeting yesterday made me really excited for the whole journey. I realized that I really am going to the USA (given that I find a family) to live there for one year what is very very exciting. And also frightening. But our dreams aren't big enough if they don't scare us, huh?

Some of the things I got yesterday

So my application is done and ready to be examined by the organization. 

Tomorrow I have my interview with a woman from the organization who will go with me through my application and maybe improve some things. She will also test my English skills. Then the organization will also look at my application and it will be sent to the USA and then my profile will be unlocked and families can contact me. Yaayy!

I am quite nervous and excited and looking forward to everything that's coming now.

I will keep you updated! xo

It's a wrap!

I just finished the application video.

The most difficult task is done! Go me! It was not easy, but it was a lot of fun.

At the beginning I had no idea what to put in the video, because there's so much to say and it has to fit in only 2 minutes. So I watched what felt like one hundred application videos of other Au pairs and I kinda took their best ideas and made them mine. Thanks for the inspiration, guys!

I wanted to film outside, which was impossible because it was too windy. Then I wanted to film myself, but my hair just didn't want to look good. For some parts of the video, my dad was my camera man, but he forgot to push the "record" button. Yesterday I was at a friend's house and we needed an hour to shoot 10 seconds. It was hysterical, my face hurt cause we laughed so much.

The cutting was rather easy and eventually, the video was finished. Actually that's almost a miracle, considering all the difficulties :p

However, here we are.

Are you ready?

(I hope this works)

I'd really appreciate a comment if you like it. Also if you don't like it. Just write "like" or "ugh my eyes hurt".

Thank you for reading & watching & hopefully commenting ;)

Christin xo

P.S.: Thanks also to my friends for their help (in case you are reading this). I love you!

And The Story Goes On

It's time to do or die!

Since my last blog post, I worked on my application and now I have most of the things that I need. I still have to do some creative work, like writing a letter to my future host family and shooting a video in which I introduce myself. Oh well, actually these are the most difficult things, but I have vaccation at the moment so I have some time to do that.

At least I have proper equipment now, because I do have a camera, but not a high quality one. So I begged my friends for their help and now I'm the proud owner of a reflex camera and a camcorder. I seriously love these things, I might never give them back :p

Profile pic!

Speaking of cameras and friends, the other day I went for a walk with a friend and we did a little photo shoot to resolve my profile pic problem (see last post). And surprisingly we were quite successful! What do you think?

During the next days, I'm gonna write my letter and shoot the video and I think I'll upload the video on YouTube for you to see! If anybody's interested.

Thanks for reading, I'd appreciate a comment if you have tips or if my profile pic looks terrible or if you want to tell me anything else.

I'm gonna end this post with my motto for the next days:

"The bridge between dreams and reality is hard work." - Jared Leto

Christin xo 

And so it begins

Das Jahr 2015 hat gerade begonnen und ich fange auch mit meiner Bewerbung als Au pair bei AIFS an. Yaaayy! Nach einigen Startschwierigkeiten kann ich endlich alle Dokumente, Referenzen und was ich sonst noch brauche zusammentragen. (Hoffentlich schaffe ich das alles ... *fingers crossed*

Es würde mich sehr freuen, wenn ihr mich während meiner Vorbereitung und dann auch während meines Aufenthaltes in Amerika begleitet. Das hier ist mein erster Blog, also seid bitte nicht allzu streng, ich kenne mich noch nicht so gut aus :p

Bis dahin,

eure Christin xo

Für Interessierte, hier die AIFS Website