So what's new?

So here's a little update on things I've been doing.

Last week was a pretty bummy week. The hardest part was thinking of things to do with J each day because apart from swimming in the mornings and gymnastics or karate of evening a week, there wasn't really anything else planned. We went to this Pirate-themed place one day, but for the most part just tried to fill in a few hours here and there at the local pool or the library.

Guys, I'm so brown. It's terrible. I feel like I'm dirty but I can't wash it off. Ick.

Met another au pair. This one's name is Miriam. She's also German. I say "she's also", but I can't remember if I've mentioned the other au pair I met a few weeks ago. Her name is Lara, and she's German, hence why I said "also". I refuse to reread those last few sentences because I'm sure they don't make sense. ;) But yeah. Miriam seems nice. We had a playdate with the kids and had coffee. The au pair she's replacing, Corrina, was there also. I don't really like her. I don't know why - it's more "the vibe" (like it's "the vibe" of the constitution... The Castle fans, anyone?). But here's something funny. We were talking about the Brazillians in the group, and how they're not very friendly, and she (Corrina) said, "Yeah, they haven't even called or emailed Miriam to welcome her."

Ahem.

That's very funny that she would say that, because I SEEM TO REMEMBER RECEIVING NOTHING FROM HER WHEN I FIRST GOT HERE. Mole.

So yeah. That was funny. And that was also Thursday.

I was going to the movies on Friday with Lara, so I invited them along. We went and saw The Devil Wears Prada which was lots of fun. Being surrounded with Germans, I didn't realise I'd have to watch what I say. I accidentally said the "N" word... Nazi. Lol. I'm not sure whether I offended them or not. They were saying that they had to watch out that they didn't slip back into German and exclude me, and I said not to worry because the moment they said something in German I'd turn into the English Nazi. Woops. Then I tried to cover it up by blabbering on about some nonsense. I'm sure they noticed, but I didn't really give them much time to react. It was awkward. For me, anyway.

So then Saturday I was surrounded by even MORE Germans!!!

I went into the city with Lara and met up with some of my friends from the training school: Maren and Nicole. They're only summer au pairs, and Nicole was here for a few days as she's based in DC. So it was a good day. We wanted to go on a boat tour of the city, but because it was Venetian Night or something they didn't have the normal $20 tours, only a $45 tour. Erm, on what we earn, and the amount I had spent lately, I wasn't prepared to part with my money.

The next day, Sunday, I basically just bummed around the house. I was going to meet up with Lara again, but decided instead to go to the mall with this other Aussie I'd met and some of her friends. It was fun. I spent more money. Me so naughty. ;)

So I'm not sure whether I've mentioned this, but I bought a ticket to Vermont to visit one of the Aussie girls from the training school. I leave on the 12th August and return the 16th. The family here is one camp for that week so I figured I may as well take advantage and go visiting. :) We might go to Montreal for the day. She said there's nothing in Vermont, and after a quick consultation with my travel guide, she would appear to be correct. Oh, there is one thing: the birthplace of Ben & Jerry's Icecream. Hells yeah!

This week's pretty easy. Or at least it should be. J has soccer camp from 1-4 each day. No more swimming, thank GOD, so I can go back to sleeping into at least 8am. :) S is still at sleep-away camp in Pennsylvania. I'm not sure whether she'll be coming back before school starts (23rd Aug) because she might spend next week with her rellos in Pennsylvania, then go to camp with her family (also in Penn).

And that means that I've survived the SUMMER!!! Wo0t!!!

Hells YEAH!

Yeah, that's right. I just bought me my ticket to Saturday's LOLLAPALOOZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOHOOO! Have a look at the awesome lineup: Wolfmother, Gnarles Barkley, Common, and KANYE WEST!!!

Sure, it cost me more than half a week's pay, but it's more than worth it!! I'm still tossing up whether to go Sunday or not, but the only band I want to see is The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Is a one and a half hour set of theirs worth $82.50 (after I've paid the service fees and shipping)? Probably, but I'm pov. :(

I also really wanted to go on Friday to see Panic! At the Disco, but I'm working.

But SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY!!!!!

Chicago Part I

Seriously, Chicago is gorgeous. It really is. I went in yesterday to see another German friend from the au pair school and is here as a summer au pair. Her name is Christina and she is this teeny tiny little thing - looks about 10 but is 21. Well, she had some problems with her host family and we thought she might have to go home. Surprisingly, they were actually able to find her another host family who needed an au pair for the rest of the summer! It worked out perfectly. :) The thing is, it's in New Jersey and she's leaving on Monday. But she hadn't even been into Chicago yet! So in we went to do some things she couldn't miss. These also turned out to be things I hadn't done yet. Because I needed to be home before 7, we could only fit in two touristy activities.

First stop: SEARS TOWER! Isn't it lovely?? Before you go up to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor you have to watch a movie on the history of the building, which is fine, except it soon becomes a whole, "Mine's bigger than your's" affair, which had me doing the whole silent laugh with Christina looking at me oddly saying, "What's so funny?"

Here are a few shots from the sky deck at the gorgeous view:

For some reason, the programme I'm using won't let me post the other photos so I'll have to do it over a few posts. 

Chicago Part II

In this photo you can see Millenium Park (more photos to come).
More building-y stuff. This photo's a little colourless, but that's just a typical city.
In this next photo you can see Navy Pier. It's the Pier with the building with two spires coming out at the end.  

Chicago Part III

So here's a lovely, glamorous shot of moi. I look HIDEOUS. I felt like crap too. I've been very tired lately. Also, note how brown my arms are. I've been out in the sun so much lately, and you all know how much I detest sunlight. Well, my hatred is well-placed seeing as I was BURNT last week. ;) Luckily my skin didn't peel, but now it's a hideous brown. And it didn't even burn evenly - you might be able to make out the white patches near my shoulders.

Anyway, the city's pretty. ^_^
Here's Christina and I. Note how young she looks!! ;)

And here is Millenium Park. The thing about Chicago is that it's a real architect's delight. Apparently it has a long history with its architecture and the city give out grants to build cool things. I have no idea what this is supposed to be, but there's a stage under it. It just looks cool.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the glorious BEAN. Lol!! It's like this great big 3D mirror and you can see yourself and the beautiful skyline behind you. It's lovely.

More pics to come!! 

Chicago Part IV

So here is a shot of Christina and I in The Bean. :) We're smack banf in the middle - I'm in the black shorts in case you're struggling to find us.



Here is the bean again, with the beautiful skyline.

Here is the inside of the bean. It's so weird walking under it cos there are all these reflections and it takes awhile to figure out where you are.


This is just our reflection.

 

Chicago Part V

So all in all it was a good day. :) It was nice to see Christina again, because I hadn't seen her in a long time. Hell, I wasn't even expecting to here from her after the training school, let alone see her again, so it was a nice surprise to hear from her. I'm glad I was able to show her Chicago before she left it.

One thing I really don't like about going into the city though is that there are so many homeless people. Yes, I know there are homeless people in Sydney, but you don't really have to interract with them at home. They sit with their head down and a sign in front of them. Here, on a stretch of maybe 100m, there will be three homeless men or women with Subway or Starbucks paper cups shaking them and asking you for change. I hate it! Firstly, I never carry money on me, secondly, I don't even earn enough money to give them anything. Yesterday though, a man was really nice when I was lost trying to find the meeting place to see Christina and he gave me directions. He then asked if I could spare some change because he hadn't eated. I gave him $3 because that's all the cash I had in my wallet and I felt so bad. I think it's because they're so in your face here, and that's why I feel bad. At home you tend to just walk past them, or throw a few coins into the little box. They don't look at you so they don't know how little you've given them. Here, it's just so full-on and it's everywhere.

Game on!

So yesterday was... an experience. Day started out fine enough. If you can consider having to wake up at 6:30 to take J to an early swim meet "fine", then yesterday started out fine.

Anyhoo, while I was at the meet I called S at home to make sure she was awake, which she was, and told her we'd be back in half an hour and to get ready cos we were going out for brekkie and to see a local highschool performance of the musical version of "The Secret Garden", which S was not looking forward to. So J and I got home 45 mins later (the meet took a little longer), and S was still in her PJs, hair unbrushed etc. Yeah, not happy, Jan. I told her to get changed quickly. We didn't have time for brekkie before the performance, so we had it after.

Breakfast was yum. J had green eggs and ham. Even though it's food colouring, looking at it still made me want to hurl. :) S had pancakes and I had banana bread french toast. Mmmmmmm. So it was a good start to the day, even if it was at noon.

When we got home though, the you-know-what hit the fan.

I needed to do laundry cos S had been doing hers the whole previous day, so I went up there and her clothes and stuff was everywhere, unfolded, and there were still clothes in the washer and dryer. So I called her to start cleaning it up and all was well.

For two seconds.

I had gone downstairs to get my dirty clothes and went back upstairs to the laundry. No S.

I go downstairs and find her in the basement watching TV. Man, she got an earful. Mostly about being 13 and needing constant supervision. The "conversation" went on for quite awhile cos she doesn't know when to shut up and just say, "Ok, my bad. I'll fix my stuff up." She likes to figure it all out on her own. Whatevs.

That basically went on for the rest of the day. :( She had so many chores that needed to be done, that should have been done yonks ago and she hadn't. And I had to keep checking her every 5 minutes to make sure she wasn't slacking off, which she was constantly doing.

...Inhale...

...Exhale...

Then in the evening I went to pick J up from his friend's house. Their dad was supposed to send him home half an hour previously, so I called again and spoke to one of the kids and told them it was time for J to come home. When I still didn't see J, I walked over to the house to pick him up. The dad was all, "The boys said he already left." Well, he wasn't at home.

We spent the next 25 mins searching the neighbourhood. Looked everywhere. I went to the park up the street about 5 times, and then on one of the nearby streets there were all these ambulances and fire engines and my heart started racing, but thankfully, no J.

I finally met back up with the other kids' dad and he was like, "Let's check the garage for his scooter." The scooter was still there, so they went back in the house and the boys yelled J's name, and J's like, "Yeah?"

HE WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME. He had spent those 25mins packing up his Yugioh cards. He hadn't even realised that no one was home. I swear, he is in his own world.

So yeah. Crisis averted.

Today was a bleh day. Another little run in with S. I think the power struggles have begun. Problem is, she's messing with the wrong girl. :)

Bye Nicole!!!

So Nicole, the au pair I replaced, went home last night. *sob* It was so good with her here. The kids and I dropped her off at the airport and she cried, they cried, I cried - tears everywhere! Nicole has been so good to me since I got here. She's taken me places, introduced me to people and filled me in on everything. I think coming here would have been a lot harder if I didn't have Nicole to make the transition period a lot smoother.

So anyway, I got lost on the way home from the airport. Lol!! I'm driving along the freeway looking for this stupid exit that Mapquest told me to take, when I notice that the road we're on says I90 South, instead of North, which is the direction I'm supposed to be heading. Then S pipes up, "I think we're in downtown Chicago." Lol. So next exit I had to get off and go to the other side of the freeway in the other direction. Needless to say, it was a long drive home, and unfortunately, S missed out on her gymnastics lesson.

So today J said something gorgeous. We were walking to the library and he goes, "When I grow up, I hope I'm just like you." And after melting on the inside I asked, "What do you mean?" and he replied, "Well, you're a grown up, but you still like fun things like cartoons and Yu-gi-oh. You're cool."

He had me at Hello.

Bamboo

Last night I went to a club with Nicole, the former au pair, and her friend Ana. It was a big club called Bamboo and it was pretty fun. They know EVERYONE there, so we didn't have to pay to go in, and we didnt pay for drinks. Seriously, I spent $10 the whole night, and that was because I gave that as a tip to the cloakroom attendant. Yes, they have attendants in the bathroom! Too funny.

I got so drunk! It's like in movies- they have these girls walking around selling shots in test tubes (like Miss Congeniality) and Nicole knew one of the girls, so I had about 3 of those, and at one of the bars (called the Tiki Lounge) they knew both bartenders, so we sat up there for about 30 mins and in that time I didn't notice the bartender keep refilling my vodka and orange. They were tall glasses too, and he used equal parts vodka to OJ. He did it about 4 times before I noticed. In half an hour. Lol. I tell you, I was very tipsy. Hehehe. So it was a good night. We were there til 2:30, which was when it closed, then did the maccas run.

You won't believe this. We bought: 2 double cheeseburgers, 2 cheeseburgers, 1 med fries, 1 med diet coke (which is the size of an AUS large), one 6 pack, 1 side salad and 3 cookies. (Don't worry, I only had one of the burgers and the DC.)

Guess the price.

Go on, GUESS!

I came to a grand total of $11.33, including tax. I kid you not. I so shouted it. Woah, I spent a whole $21.33 last night. Big spender.

The little I spent last night was ruined in one and a half hours at Woodfield Mall. :'( I'm not going to say how much I spent. All I will say is that I went there to buy some Bumble and Bumble Sea Salt Spray for my hair. Apparently they don't sell that anywhere in the Mall. I bought other things. That's all I'll say. Oh, except that I will be returning one of the things I bought, bringing my total spending down significantly.

Speaking of hair stuff, my hair has been sooooo yuck since I got here. Usually at home, if I don't blowdry it, it's not pretty, but it tends to be OK. Here, it's just one frizzy mess, even with product in it! I've realised it has to do with the level of chlorine in the water. Like, you can't drink the tap-water because it tastes too strongly of chlorine, so it has to be that. Annoying, but I just need to find other solutions! Oh GHD, how I miss you!

Well, I've been here for just over a month.

My problem is that I haven't made friends with any of the au pairs in my group. Well, I have become friends with one, but that's kind of because she was friends with the old au pair and basically just inherited me. ;)

But my au pair group is what's getting me down. Because I'm with an agency, I thought it would be so easy to make friends. About two weeks after I got here I had my first meeting. I spoke to most people, at least to introduce myself, but everyone was so cliquey. I didn't seem to be able to break into their little groups. And i got no invitations to meet up for coffee or anything like that. But there was another new girl who had arrived earlier that week, and they welcomed her with open arms!

Ok, so that's one thing, so I thought I should try again.

My host family were having a hello/goodbye party for myself and the previous au pair and asked me to invite the group. So I called around. Mostly I got answering machines. I did reach two people. One said she would come, the other said she might be able to come and that she would see whether the other girls would come. But then I never heard anything from any one. I sent an email to everyone because I heard nothing, and GOT NO REPLIES.

I have no idea what to do. I feel like giving up on these girls, because why would I want to be friends with people that rude? But then again, my next year will be so miserable if I don't have people to spend it with. I don't understand the problem though. I'm not too shy, I'm friendly and I make an effort.

They've all been in my position. Shouldn't they be more sympathetic? I seriously don't know what to do.