Okay, okay.. Let's finally do this. I kind of forgot about it and then figured I just wouldn't write about it all, but I can't completely leave it out because it was so amazing!
My first Tuesday in L.A. Rosanne had to work, which gave me the time to just relax and catch up with the time difference. In the evening we went to Glendale mall, which was fun. Believe it or not, this was the first and only time I've been to a mall in the USA yet! They had really cool fountain, spraying water up on the rhythm of the music that was playing. I had a hard time not to spend all my money on clothes right away..
On Wednesday we had decided to do the L.A. tour, which looking back, might not have been the best idea for that day. When we arrived at Hollywood it was pouring rain and it was so foggy that we could not even see the Hollywood sign. Still full of good spirit we went to sit on the top of the double-decker tour bus, but after about 45 minutes we were both so soaked and freezing cold we really needed to go inside again. When we arrived at Santa Monica I had not heated up one bit and I was highly uncomfortable, so I decided to buy a whole new set of clothes at H&M. Although it may seem like a waste of money to buy a complete new set of clothes just because it rained, I'm very glad I did, so that I could enjoy the rest of the tour. We walked to the Santa Monica pier and I had to try very hard to imagine how nice it would look on a sunny day. Over all I still had fun though, it felt kind of typical that the one day I'm in L.A. and want to do the bus tour it rains, it never rains there normally! Oh well.. After rain comes sunshine so luckily that left us with much, much better weather for the next days.
The following morning we went by Hollywood again on our way to Universal Studios, so that I could still see the Hollywood sign. Weather had completely turned and we took some great sunny shots that morning. Universal Studios was a lot of fun! We did the Universal Studios Tour and went by the sets of major films and series. It was really amazing to see how they did lots of the special effects and let you be right in the middle of it! The rest of Universal was pretty cool too, they had some different kinds of rides, lots of photo opportunity and Grinchmas! So there was a big Christmas tree, fake ice and the Grinch to take photo's with.
Friday afternoon we left for Santa Barbara, that was really really cool too. When we arrived at the hotel we got a discount and a better room because the guy at the desk helping us was originally Dutch too, so that was already a great beginning. Our cottage was very cute, like a little vacation home. Because we couldn't go out we build our own little party and spend the evening jumping on the beds and singing along way too loud with Dutch music. I can appreciate De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig and other Dutch rap a lot more when other people can't hear what I'm singing. On Saturday morning we ate breakfast on the pier, looked for some souvenirs and then arranged to do a Sunset Cruise that evening. It took us forever to find the boat that afternoon and we had to run to even make it, but once we were on it was pretty amazing. I like being on the water and seeing the sunset was absolutely beautiful. The next day we went on a boat again, this time for a Whale Watching Tour. This was definitely one of the most fun and unique things I've done in my life! First we could just enjoy being on the water and seeing Santa Barbara disappear in to the distance. Then our boat was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of dolphins! Some of the dolphins were even swimming under and besides our boat, coming up just where we were standing at the front of the deck. I had never seen dolphins in the wild before so I was already saying to Rosanne that even if this was the only thing we'd see on this whole tour, it would be way worth it. But, we did see more! A little while later we spotted whale's and our boat slowed down to keep up with it. Finally we got really pretty close to one. It was amazing to watch the whales spray water up, come up for air and then go down again. Every time it was about to take a deep breath and go underwater for a longer time the whale flipped his tail all the way up and everyone started snapping pictures like crazy cause it looked so beautiful. Unfortunately it was really hard to snap a picture just at the right time, but we got some okay ones and that image is now burned in to my memory anyway. In total we saw the dolphins, 5 or 6 whales and sea lions. We also went by the Channel Island, which is an amazing series of Islands, one of the few on earth untouched by humans. Sunday afternoon we had to leave Santa Barbara again, but I thought it was a beautiful city and I'd love to go there again someday.
On my last day in L.A. we went to Disneyland. Strangely, as I was looking forward to this the most, this turned out to be the least fun out of all the thing I did that week, which says something as I still had a great time there. We went with Rosanne's host-mom and the 3 year old twin girls. There were long rows everywhere and because we were with the kids I couldn't go in as many roller coasters as I would have without them, but the kids rides were nice too. I love all the Disney stories, so no problem to ride through Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh. When we did the Splash Mountain (sort of water roller coaster, but not really scary) we got stuck just before going up for the biggest splash. We were lucky we were not 2 cars ahead because that one really stopped almost vertically just before going down. It was quite an interesting experience though, all the light flicked on and after a while we were kindly escorted out through the emergency exit. We walked through the backstage part of the park, looking far less fancy than the actual park itself. About 20 minutes later the ride was up and going again and we gave it another try, this time with success and I got nicely soaked like I was supposed to.
Tuesday I arrived back in Seattle and was intermediately faced with cold weather and the endless amount of homeless people here again. One of them started following me and I had to start shouting really loud for him to finally give up on me. Afterwards I felt so guilty I did give money to another homeless woman at McDonald's, but then their employees looked really annoyed at me too, it's never right... Besides that I am really glad to be back though. L.A. was a great experience but I glad I live here and not there. Here I can see my mountains, I have my friends, I have Seattle and the weather is really not that bad (although people say this is just an extraordinary mild year and normally it's worse). Next week Wednesday I'll be here 6 months, time is going so fast!
dinsdag 26 januari 2010
vrijdag 8 januari 2010
You know that you're an Au Pair in America when..
You know you're an Au Pair in the USA when...
...you always introduce yourself with : "Hi! my name is (your name), I'm from (country) and I have (amount of children you are taking care of) children!!" - CHECK
...you know that every american is somehow related to a German!!! - CHECK I think this list was made by Germans, so to switch it to Dutch; Yes I have figured out that every american is somehow related to the Netherlands O_o!
...you are drinking the water you used to swim in when you were little (Chlor-Wasser) and you don't mind anymore! - CHECK I've also found peace with buying water from the store now at least 1 time every week.
...everybody is greeting you with a "Hi! How are you!" and most of the time you can't respond fast enough, so you say it first! - CHECK
...the worst thing is, when the dad is working from home!!! - CHECK Well, just either of them working from home.
...you spent all your money at the MALL and you still have nothing to wear - CHECK
...you hate Dora, The Wiggles and Thomas - CHECK I'm lucky enough that my kids don't really watch TV
...you say silly instead of stupid - CHECK
...you go to PLAYDATES - CHECK
...you've seen more movies in one month than in your whole life at home - nope
...you drive over 30 minutes to a friend and you think it's not far - CHECK
...you only have other Au Pairs as your friends - CHECK
...you say "like" and "totally" every three words - CHECK
...you don't think it's wrong to have cake AND ice cream. - CHECK OMG! Best invention ever! :D
...you park as close to the store as possible so you don't have to walk even one yard too far - CHECK sometimes I even consider parking the car closer to the Ride Aid when I just went to Safeway if I need to go there too, which is about a one minute walk from each other. I never do, but.. every time again it crosses my mind.
...you notice yourself saying "GOOD JOB" a hundred times a day - CHECK
...you even start to say "Good for you" in a positiv way and you don't mean the german "schön für dich"!!! - CHECK
...you wonder why you slept the whole night long so uncomfortable and you notice the next morning, you slept on a barbie, a lollypop, sandtoys etc. - nope, haha, too bad for those other girls though :p
... you need to be creative to find new punishments because a time-out doesn't work anymore ;) - nope, time-outs are still golden
...you're sure you don't want own kids within the next 100 years - CHECK
...you know now exactly how difficult it was for your parents to have little kids and you feel like saying sorry for all you've done to your mum and dad every day - CHECK Thanks and sorry for so many things mom O_o
...you're ready to drink anytime of the day - CHECK when's that next house party?
...you start to love disney movies again and can copy every passage of them - CHECK
...you've learned what it means to be patient - CHECK
...you know that you should never SHAKE A BABY!!! - CHECK
...you take a nap, after you dropped of the kids at school (after being up for just 2h :-D) - CHECK CHECK CHECK naps are awesome!
...you are DRIVING to the busstop to pick up your kids, which is only 200 meters from your house. - nope, I walk
...the kids call you mum 'cause you spend too much time with them - CHECK I am now; Mamika
... you think $160 every weekend just for shopping and coffee are not that much - CHECK
... one cup of coffee doesn`t make you awake anymore, it just makes you alive. - Half CHECK it does definitely not make me more awake, but half the time I forget that my coffee is always ready in the morning and I don't drink it.
...you miss the good ol' days when you were able to go to the bakery and get real bread w/ real crust - nope? what are they talking about? I never went to the bakery, not here and not in the Netherlands..
...you don't walk into the bank, you use the drive inn to get your money - nah, I love the touchscreen ATM's here, I'll walk in.
...you get four plastic bags for the can of milk and the one pack of oreos at stop and shop (well...at least they pack it for you :D ) - no?
...you feel guilty of murder, when you forget the snack for school... - CHECK
..you can't say "no" anymore if your hostmum asks you "could you please...if you get the chance... just if it is no problem" - CHECK
... you never give your name on the phone - I do, how else would they know who their speaking with??
... the kids want something NOW! - Are there words missing here? I don't care.. :p
...you start apologizing for walking by someone in the grocery store - CHECK
...you think that your country is just the best country in the world - Half CHECK I can definitely see some of the advantages of the better Netherlands now, but it's still not the best country in the world
Daniela found this list and I thought it was so funny that I can say yes to a lot of these things, and that probably most Au Pairs can. And that they're pretty much all things I didn't really expect. So, just had to post it to let you know :p
I love being back in Bainbridge and being able to walk through Seattle again. I had my first Drawing class last Wednesday and it was a lot of fun. Much more younger people than in my Chinese class and I don't have to feel like such an idiot because I'm not the worst person in the class. Currently busy making a photo sort of scrapbook for my year here and getting loads and loads of photos printed.
OKAY, I'm off again. Last thing; Thanks Laura, for sending me a Christmas card. Yay! My first card :D!
vrijdag 1 januari 2010
Christmas Vacation
Happy New Years! I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and had an awesome party on New Years eve. I hope you all got my cards by now and I hope you liked it! Just as a side note; writing back IS allowed. I haven’t received a single card in all my time here, and in 2 days I’ll be celebrating 5 months in America!! No pressure though ;).
Vacation has been nothing less than awesome, amazing and unforgettable. It’s not even over yet, but after 2 weeks I already have more then you want to read to write about. St. John was absolutely the most beautiful place I have ever been and I can not believe my luck that I got to go there with my host-family. In mid December I was walking around in skirts and tank-tops, with underneath a bikini, because we were going to the beach every day. I heard that it snowed in the Netherlands, but in St. John I was getting a nice tan. The beaches were nothing like the Dutch beaches and even less like the ones in Bainbridge. Light, almost white sand, palm trees and the most beautiful clear blue water you have ever seen. My host-families house is on top of a hill and it had a great view of the Caribbean Sea and the rest of St. John.
Christmas day could not have been more different than what I’m used to. Although I feel very lucky and thankful that I could go to St. John, I really missed the old familiar Christmas I always had in the Netherlands. Where it has pretty much always just been me and my mom, and it was now me and my host-family plus a dozen other people I never met before. With a total of 18 people, including 6 kids, divided over 2 houses, it was quite crowded. Our Christmas tree was made out of 3 or 4 palm tree branches and the amount of presents underneath there on Christmas morning was amazing.. As a Christmas present I got to pick out a new winter coat, got a nice tank-top and a CD with all the songs from the TV-show Glee. Oh, and then of course there’s the whole trip to St. John, as if that alone wouldn’t have been more than enough.. In the evening we all had a big Christmas dinner together, which was very yummy. Why did I never eat turkey in the Netherlands?? Speaking of food, and quite apart from the subject, since I’m here I discovered surprisingly many things I do not like to eat. I guess having eaten mostly the same things most of my life, I never tried some of the things I’m trying here now. But now I know; artichokes, cranberry sauce, celery (specially uncooked) and ginger, not for me. Also there’s a range of American candy that is just inedible. Hersey’s and Reese’s are highly popular, but I think it’s about the worst thing I ever had.
Okay, back to vacation! On the 28th of December I left St. John to go to L.A., the next big adventure. The day had started most beautiful, the ferry-ride to St. Thomas was amazing. At St. Thomas airport however, my flight to Atlanta was unfortunately delayed, and when I asked what time we’d be arriving they told me I had only 7 minutes to transfer. They were able to change my seat to an isle spot near the entrance/exit so I’d be able to get out as one of the first. The whole flight I stayed stressed out about the thought of missing my flight, and not wanting to be stuck in the airport overnight. Of course to make matters worse, upon arrival we had to wait for the stair thingy to come to the airplane and we were arriving in a different Gate area, further from my departing Gate. I ran as fast as I could possibly go, with a heavy hand-luggage bag, but by the time I got there they had stopped letting people on. The following 3 hours I could spend 3 pages writing about, but I’ll try to keep it short. I tried to figure out what the next flight would be and they told me I’d have to spend the night at the airport and I would only arrive in Burbank 21 hours later then I was supposed to. After asking, I got put on Stand-by for a flight to L.A.. I didn’t quite realize that the next flight was already in 40 minutes though, and with my mind on not-working, I walked first all the way to the end of Gate area B, then all the way back. Then I realized I had to hurry and went to Gate A, just before realizing that I had to be at the end of Gate E, and I had to run to get there in time. It was no use though, cause the plane was completely full, and even if there had been spaces there would have been a dozen people waiting before me. I called the Delta help line and asked what to do now and they referred me again to the flight the next day. When I asked them if I would have to pay for the hotel myself or if they would they had me wait for about 10 minutes before telling me that a hotel would be accommodated by them. Feeling this was at least some kind of relief I went to the Delta desk to claim my hotel voucher. However…! At the Delta desk the man who was supposed to give me the voucher suddenly had to make a bunch of mysterious phone calls and after that he asked why my flight had been delayed. I told him that the woman from the Delta helpline told me that something was late arriving to the plane, and then I also told him, laughing, that I had heard rumors that the president had arrived in St. Thomas that morning, and that that was the reason that my plane couldn’t take off. After which he kindly announced that Delta would not be covering my hotel because the president arriving was not Delta’s fault. There apparently was nothing about something arriving late the plane in the system, but there was something about a V.I.P. arrival.. Right or not, after hearing this something just sort of snapped. I started crying and I just couldn’t believe how unfair they were being. The man behind the desk kept telling me that he understood but that there was nothing he could do, which just made me more angry. Thirty seconds later another Deltra coworker was telling me to calm down and stop yelling (I wasn’t yelling! (that hard..)) or she’d call security. Haha, I could see my mom doing the exact same thing in the same situation and it made me very proud :p. So I calmed down a little, and they started looking at other options for me. Finally, - really finally after the longest time -, they told me they’d put me on standby for two other flights to L.A. that evening. I really wonder why they hadn’t done that before because I clearly said to multiple Delta people that I was happy to fly to LAX instead of Burbank, as long as I didn’t have to stay the night in Atlanta and arrive a full day later. THEN right at the end the Delta woman had the courage to say that it was kind of my own fault for only leaving 50 minutes transfer time during the holidays, I could have totally expected to miss my flight. This made me instantly cry again and I was able to “kindly” with my most angry face tell her “politely” that Delta itself came up with this plan and that she was pissing me off enormously. And then I was off to my next Gate again, waiting if I could get on. I must have called/texted about 5 of you people, because I was just so sad and I really needed someone to cheer me up. Luckily I finally got a hold of Daniela and talking to her really made me feel much, much better. Two hours later I was sitting as Standby for my third flight, I didn’t get on the second, and was talking to another family of 5 who was first to get on the flight if spots opened up. I was 6th.. I don’t know if you can really call it luck after all the bad things that happened before, but miraculously 6 spots did open up and I got on the last flight to L.A.. At 4am my time, 12am L.A. time, I FINALLY arrived at LAX airport. My baggage was not with me, because it had not made it onto the plane in time, and it arrived to next day at Burbank airport. Rosanne and her host-mom came to pick me up and after a total 19 hour journey I made it to my final destination. Haha, sorry – that was not short at all.
Okay, this is already getting way too long so I’ll leave it here. Part 2 coming up soon! Should be fun cause I went to … and … and …! Haha! :D I’ll tell you later!
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