B-You-Tifull Day

Oh Boy, week three almost finished:

This week so far has been interesting! My boss was out of town until late Tuesday night, so I couldn’t really go into Madrid or do anything fun until today. Today I got to go to Segovia- a UNESCO world heritage site. It has a lot of really ancient structures, including an aqueduct that is as old as 100 AD and a few extremely large churches- a synagogue and a cathedral. I got to go with a friend that I met at church here, who is also nannying, and just happens to also be named Liz. Travelling with someone else is so much more fun. We saw the aqueduct, the cathedral, Alzcazar, and went to lunch. We had melon soup with shrimp in it and it was surprisingly good. When I sat down at the restaurant I looked behind my chair and there was a carved sheep leg on the table behind me, covered up by a napkin. Poor sheep. The whole time we ate the waiter just stared at us, he got really twitter patted when he tried to speak English to us, which was funny because we only spoke to him in Spanish.

Funny story of today:

I bought a pair of jeans from H and M. After I bought them I noticed a tag warning that the contents of the jeans (fabric dye) may wipe off onto other materials. When I changed my pants when I came home I found my legs to be blue. Too bad there was no disclaimer about changing skin color :P.

I’m glad I am only here for 5 more weeks. I'm not homesick, but I kind of do not want to be here for too much longer. It will be a good experience but I can’t imagine doing this forever, or even a year. I have planned a lot of things I need to do on weekends here to get through it, here is the low down:

June 29-July 1^st: Hopefully Lisbon, Portugal

July 13-15^th: Scotland 

July 20-22: Marrakesh, Morocco (1st day of Rammadan, I am excited)

July 27-29^th: Milan, Italy

I am posting all of these so that I make myself go!

As for after-nannying travel I have made a route:

Geneva, Switzerland

Zurich, Switzerland

Vienna, Austria

Budapest, Hungary

Prague, Chech Republic

Krakow, Poland

Warsaw, Poland

Stockholm Switzerland

I am SOOOOO excited.

Think of the children

Today I got to venture into the city- this happens like 2-3 days a week not including church. As a nanny, your host family sets you up on friends dates. They are afraid that you will have no other way of spending time with anyone or making friends, so they have you hang out with their friend’s nannies. So today I went to Madrid with my host mom’s work friend’s nanny. We walked through the Retiro Park and people watched and then moseyed over to the Thyssen museum of art.

In Parque Retiro

Parque Retiro lake- it is supposed to be the central park of Madrid.

It’s funny how I came to Europe to experience something different, to get a little more culture, but I have been noticing a trend; every museum that is famous for having art by Van Gogh is missing it. I love Van Gogh, where could it possibly be? At every empty wall where a piece of Van Gogh’s art stood, there is a little plaque that says that it is on loan to a little museum in the U.S. called “The Philadelphia Museum of Art”. So while I am in Europe trying to see all of the paintings I thought I could only see here, they are actually 2.3 miles away from my apartment in Philly. I still really enjoyed the museum, I wish I could dedicate a class to art history or painting, I just don’t have room in my schedule. I will just have to teach myself or take classes during the summer.


Last week I got to go to the Madrid temple with my friend Camila. Afterwards, I asked if we could take a picture together and she ended taking a ton of pictures of me. Here is one of them:

outside of the temple!

 After the temple I went to Sol (super touristy area) with fellow Au-Pair Laure and church friend Laila to get some ice cream and hang out. The guy at the ice cream shop could tell I was American and decided to talk to me about the 76ers while scooping out my helado, he wouldn't speak to me in Spanish it made me kind of sad. 

Laure and Laila in Sol- life size mini-mouse is posing for a picture with tourists behind them. I thought disney world was in Florida?

Good news, the girl I am watching had her birthday last week. Bad news, I am in charge of her party tomorrow. To top it off, her mom just told me that she got called into Barcelona tomorrow and that she won’t be here for half of the party and her husband will also be gone. She invited 25 eight year old kids. It is also a swim party. I also don’t know how to scold children in Spanish yet. I just hope no one drowns. Tomorrow is going to be an adventure. 

Catchup time!

So….

I haven’t written in almost a year. A lot has definitely happened and I am excited to tell you all about it! I just finished my second year of nursing school and the hardest school year I have had so far. This summer is a great vacation.

Currently I am an au pair in Madrid, Spain. I am taking a three month long leave from the U.S. and I am travelling to as many places as possible. Currently this summer I have only been to 4 countries. Rwanda, Holland, Belgium, and now Spain. On weekends, I plan on visiting Portugal, Barcelona, and Scotland. After I finish my job I plan on travelling to Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Chzech Republic, and Sweden. Wish me luck! I might be travelling alone, which will be even more of an adventure.

In the family I currently work for, I watch one little girl who just turned 8. Her name is Laura and she is really awesome. My job is pretty much to teach her English, and she is picking up a lot pretty fast. It has been fun. She is still in school until the end of June, so I have about 8-10 hours a day to read. In the last 8 days I have read 6 books and they keep on coming. Email me if you have any recommendations, my goal for the summer is 50 books. Maybe 40 if I decide to read longer ones J.

I am excited to experience this summer!! It is going to be fun! I am going to start doing weekly blogs, so keep a look out! Here are some pictures from the last year of fun.

I was traveling alone- so the only picture of myself I could take was in shopping windows. This is in Amsterdam.

 At a market in Kigali, Rwanda- Mazungu means white person. A lot of people actually called us mazungus as we were traveling within Rwanda.

This is me outside of a Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey

Frittes in Brugge, Belgium

Easter in D.C. with the fam

so dirty after the safari. I am really 10 shades lighter than this picture.

Me and two friends from D.C. at independence hall in Philly. This was during our LDSSA conference.