Au-Pair - 1 - Back to Espana

After a long hiatus, mainly due to the stresses of Junior Honours and the fact that this seems to be more of a travel blog than anything else, I will be trying to write some more on this blog...at least during the summer as I'm back living in Espana :)   Well, for two more weeks...

So why am I back?  And what am I doing?  To answer this we need to go back a little in time...

*wibbly wobbly effects*

At the end of my year abroad my Spanish level was pretty good, I rapidly improved and I understood just about everything that people would say to me.  But I still felt that my oral skills were sorely lacking, and even though I spoke in my oral classes I always felt that my fluency should be higher and that my confidence when speaking, which lacks even in English as I'm quite introvert, needed to be higher in order that my final language exams could reflect what I feel like I can achieve.  So I started looking for a way to get myself back to Spain, in order to A) immerse myself in Spanish and B) if possible to attend Spanish language classes to reinforce the grammar and correct/academic language use.  The answer came in the form of being an Au-Pair.

An Au-Pair's job description varies from playing with kids in English and generally baby-sitting them whilst their parents are working to being a full-on Mary Poppins complete with house work and cooking.  By using the website aupair-world.co.uk I found an ideal family...they were Catalan and lived next to the beach...the downside, they have two little boys, one of whom is still in diapers...After a long hard think, I had to turn down their offer as my Castillian language skills have to take precedent, although I still plan on living in Catalonia one day .  I then returned to looking and found another gem of a family.  After a few Skype sessions where I met the family and the little boy, I bought my tickets and set my sights on living in Tres Cantos (a satellite town about 30 mins on the Cercanias from the centre of Madrid).  Tres Cantos has a very good economic level, and the people here are not worrying about La Crisis.  For example, my family have two cars, own their house and their child goes to a semi-private school where he learns English, Chinese and Arabic...have I mentioned he is 6!

So family found, flights booked, cases packed and my sister was also staying in Madrid as an Au-Pair. Summer was off to a flying start.


I left the UK on the 15th of June and finally met my host family face to face...or cara a cara.