I'm in Germany!

Hello all!
And by all I mean all three of you.
Almost two months later and I'm finally updating and I've already spent three days here.

Right now I'm just sitting at the kitchen table waiting for 3:20pm to roll around so I can pick up the kids from Kindergarden. I bike about ten minutes in to town and pickand them up and bring them to a park for a bit then bring them home for dinner and a movie.

The beginning on my day basically consists of a getting up, cleaning a bit and putting away dishes and then either going in to town or doing what I did today and basically dicked around the house and Skyped a few people.

Because it's my third day and the first two were the weekend I haven't really been getting out much. Besides the park with the boys, or going somewhere with the family. Usually Mondays are my day off, but because the parents have an anniversary dinner tonight, I'll be looking after the kids with Sarah (their previous au pair that is here for the week to show me around) tonight and then hopefully tomorrow we'll go in to town and she'll introduce me to some people.

Erlangen is beautiful though. All the buildings are gorgeous and the parks are really nice and everyone rides around on bikes.

Nürnberg is also beautiful. We all went there yesterday to go up to the castle, and because it's at the top of a hill, you can look out and see almost the entire city. Plus there was a music festival thing going on, so you could hear music from where ever you were. There was also a fuck ton of people from Quebec there playing said music... Not sure why...

But yeah, it's been great so far. Other than being in slight pain from biking so much I really have no complaints.

=)  

A Little Update and Doctor Who

Just under two months now. Under. Two. Months. I feel as though that isn't enough time to get everything ready, but honestly, the only only thing that I have to do is say goodbye to people and pack my luggage. I keep having random bits of tearing up when I think about how soon I'm leaving. It's never because I'm sad about leaving people behind, which will probably hit during the last week or so, but because I'm so excited to leave.

The au pair fam is in Ireland for the next two weeks which gives me a lot of hope for when I go. At the moment there's literally nothing I want more than to wander around the streets of Dublin and soak in the Irish accents. God, they're beautiful. I have an insane love for accents, which usually makes me flail when I hear someone with an accent and my friends to respond with either, "he's too old for you," or "he's too young for you." So, I can't wait to actually meet people my age with accents. I'm flailing just thinking about it.

Speeeeeeeeeaking of accents. I've FINALLY started watching Doctor Who. It's weird, honestly, I already know so much about it due to being a part of the Harry Potter fandom, which is often laced with a lot of Whovians and a few of my friends also love Doctor Who. 

I've finished the last two seasons in the last few days and my God. I haven't gotten this absorbed into a TV show since Boy Meets World and anyone of my friends can tell you how much I love Boy Meets World. The first time I went to my best friend's house when I was sixteen we watched the last episode of Boy Meets World and I cried. I'm quite pleased that I didn't scare her too much. 

Anyway, yeah. I haven't been this obsessed with a TV show since Boy Meets World and it's insane. I've become increasingly obsessed and when the 9th Doctor regenerated I didn't even know what to do with myself. And the episode "Doomsday"... For those of you that have seen it, I probably don't need to tell you how much I cried. For those of you that haven't watched Doctor Who... Do it. Do it now. 

Also, for those expecting a pure au pair blog, you probably won't be getting it. I'm, fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, a nerd, I've accepted this and embraced it to the fullest. If you aren't, well, I recommend giving it a try. You get to be overly enthusiastic about things and don't have to feel bad about it! It's quite nice really. 

If you haven't watched Boy Meets World either you should probably give that a go as well. It's amazing and one of the best shows of the 90's.

Cruises and Travelling with Family

Wooooow. I've been away for a while... Sorry about that. I was basically just being incredibly lazy, except for the last two weeks I've been packing/cruising/hotel living/being in airports. I'm currently writing this in Cleveland, Ohio, so my travelling still isn't done yet.

During all this travel I've realised a few things. Two of which I touch base on in this video:

The main one being that I hate living through a camera. My cousin spent the whole trip living through the lens of her camera. For example, on the last night of the cruise we had a show called "Blue Planet" and she recorded the whole thing and at the end she turned to me and said, "I watched that whole thing through my camera." To me that's not a fun way to spend a trip. 

The other one being how stressful it is to travel with family. The last two trips I've taken have been without either of my parents, and lets just say going back to travelling with one or both of them is extremely hard. My mother, who was the only one of my parents with me, tends to get worked up really easily if something doesn't go the way she expected. She also worries about everyone besides herself. I was the youngest one there, and I'm nineteen. So, we were all adults. She also tends to treat one of her sisters like a child, so that wasn't fun. 

All in all though, it was a good trip. We ate a ridiculous amount of food, every night we had a three course dinner, but most of us ended up ordering two appetizers, two entrees, or two desserts. Or more. And it was free in the dining room we were in, which made it infinitely more awesome. Here's my dinner from the first night, sans dessert because I had to get it to go to make it to a show. 

My next trip is Germany! 

VEDA and Failure

Helloooooooooooo,

So, I'm doing VEDA, which means "Vlog Every Day in April", if you didn't know. I'm doing this not on The Expat Chronicles, but on my own channel.

In the vlog that I just did for VEDA I talk about how I failed HORRIBLY attempting to flirt with the cashier at the drugstore... So, yeah check it out.

And this is my most recent video for TEC, in which I talk about my need to change everything before I leave for Germany and all the freaking books I bought.

Yep! Bye!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

On one of the mornings I got off the night shift and I couldn't sleep I had the idea of changing my room around.

Okay, that's a lie. It started out with me thinking how much I REALLY needed a bookshelf. And I do. I have books EVERY WHERE in my room, to the point where they are flowing out in to every room in my house. And when I say "every room", I mean EVERY ROOM. So, the bookshelf gradually progressed to me thinking about how I should get a desk so I can start filming vlogs in my room. Because honestly, it's really uncomfortable being in my kitchen while my dad is about five steps away listening to me rant on about Harry Potter or how excited I am to leave Halifax, and everything that goes with it, behind for Germany. Anyway, since I couldn't fit the desk we have in my room the way it was originally set up, I decided to change everything around. I'll attempt to get a picture tomorrow because it's still a mess.

Through changing my room around I've realised just how much stuff I have. Like really, really useless things. Things that I don't even know where I got them or why I still have them. And as useless as they are, I had a REALLY hard time throwing a lot of it out. I suppose it just brings me back to my childhood.

Which brings me to another thing. Yesterday, well it's midnight now, so two days ago, I was watching Hook (y'know the one with Robin Williams) and I had a COMPLETE breakdown. My mother walked in to my room to ask if I wanted some carrots and I looked at her and she slowly backed away. It just reminded me horribly that I'm growing up and nothing I do can stop that. It was an awful feeling, but I suppose growing up has it advantages as well. Like being able to move to a different continent by yourself.

It's weird, because as I get closer and closer to leaving I keep wanting to change things. My room has changed now, and I'm thinking about dying my hair right before I go over. I don't know what that's about, perhaps I'll ask Emily if she experienced it in my vlog tomorrow.

And I've yet to get a bookshelf.

Plane Ticket, St. Patrick's Day & No Sleep

The title basically sums up my entire weekend.

The best part being I finally bought my plane ticket! I'm quite pleased about this. I cannot waaaaait to go to Germany. I genuinely wish I could leave this second. Perhaps have a nice nap on the flight over. But alas, I have to wait until July. What can you do?

I woke up at 12am today... It's 5:44pm right now and I'm at work. I get off work at 11pm tonight.

So, because I do weird shift work here, my sleep schedule is always screwed up, but it seems to have gotten A LOT worse lately. This weekend has been horrible. I've been staying awake for literally full days. I just can't seem to shut off my brain. I've tried taking melatonin and such, but NOTHING seems to be working, and I'm breaking a little.

Anyway, since I didn't wake up until midnight I couldn't really go out, because I'd of had to shower and look halfway decent which would take me about 45 minutes to an hour. So, I stayed home. And dicked around on Youtube and make sugar cookies. Which were awesome.

So, thus concludes what I did this weekend.

... I really need to get out more.

Le Quick Note

Just a little note to say how much I love the song "Wizard Love" by meekakitty and heyhihello. Every time I listen to it, and when I say "every time" I mean, "the hour I spend replaying it",  it kind of imbeds its self in to my brain and I can’t get it out for days and I end up singing it in public. Let’s note almost two weeks ago when I was in the drugstore and I was proudly singing it, only to round the corner and have a guy look at me like, “heh, I don’t want to make this awkward for you, so I’ll just smile and be polite.” So, yeah, check it out! 

I Am a Stress Baker

Stress baking. I've recently just noticed that this is something I do. I was having a small heart attack thinking about all the money I need to save if I want to travel around Europe while I'm Au Pairing and the fact I STILL have to buy a plane ticket it. So, I thought to myself "eff this, I'm making a carrot cake." I'm not entirely sure if this thought ever crosses the mind of sane people, but at least I got a cake out of it.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, considering I've never made one before.

Back to the plane ticket. I keep putting it off, mainly because I don't actually own a credit card that I know the PIN to, so I have to use my mother's. And I JUST finished paying her back the money I owed her for going to London, Ontario to see the SPACE tour. So, hopefully that will be happening soon, because I kind of need that.

THIS is my second vlog that I've posted. Mostly it's me falling and having weird hair. I genuinely cannot concentrate on the video because I'm thinking, "what the hell is happening with your bangs?"

AND THIS is my third vlog, and I continue having really weird hair, but it's all of my hair this time. I think as these progress, my hair will slowly turn more insane to the point where I'm forced to shave it off, because being bald is better than having to suffer through the absurdity that is my hair.

No. I don't think I'm being dramatic.

Also, the recipe for the carrot cake is in the third vlog.  

Work Anger, and a Vlog!

It seems as though my blog posts are becoming more and more angry. Anyway... I genuinely dislike when people constantly call in sick for no apparent reason. I mean, if you're truly sick. Take the time off, because I don't want to catch that shit, but when you call in "sick" because the Daytona 500 was rescheduled to Monday. REALLY!? Then you call in again, and ask me to call the person to cover the shift for you. Sweet baby Jesus, I think not. I'm running on an hour and a half of sleep and I cannot tolerate your bullshit. You are thirty years old. Man up. 

On a happier note, THIS is my first vlog! So, humour me and check it out won't you.

So, you probably noticed that this is the second video... And you quite possibly also realised that the first person was, in fact, not me. And if you happen to subscribe (*wink wink nudge nudge*), you’ll again realise that the person who posts tomorrow also isn’t me. Well. There’s a reason for that. Gaёlle wrote in your pants that she wanted to do a collab channel of people studying abroad and that’s where Emily, Nicole, Rhiannon, and I stepped in, with the help of Johannes. All of us are travelling or, in my case, working abroad and we all think this is a great way of helping future travellers.

So, this is the schedule:

Monday: Nicole
Tuesday: Me

Wednesday: Emily
Thursday: Gaёlle

Friday: Rhiannon

So, the only days we don’t post something are weekends. Which I say is to be expected. I hope you enjoy!  

Ich Bin Ein Riese Tintenfisch Von Zorn

Which means, "I am a giant squid of anger". I'm thoroughly convinced that this will be the only German I will ever need. You may be thinking, 'how is that even possible? Clearly you may have to ask for directions or something?' My answer to this is no. Just think about it, it clearly expresses anger, because y'know, it has the word anger in it. Or people will think you are insane, and with my horrible accent they will realise I need an English speaking person ASAP. Personally, I think it's brilliant.

If you're wondering where this thought process came from here's the story: I was at work, and I was trying to edit my vlog so Nicole could use a piece of it for our intro for our collab channel on Youtube (I'll talk about this in more detail in the next post). Anyway, these women showed up in the lobby AND WOULD NOT LEAVE. And I don't mean they were there for twenty minutes. I mean, by the time 11:00pm rolled around and it was time for me to go THEY WERE STILL THERE. They quite literally decided their apartment was not good enough to talk in, so they went out to the lobby. So, for the first hour, I quietly sat there. I mean, I couldn't play my video at work, especially when you can hear me say "fucking fuck" when I mess up on a take. So, after that first hour I've decided, if I play it quietly enough they out be able to hear it. So, I spent the next hour with my ear to my laptop, attempting to edit a video.

Also, I made an attempt to eat spaghetti without them seeing, so I had to duck my head down behind the counter every time I took a bite.

On a lighter note...

* Giant squid of anger... If you don't know where it's from... Google it.

Family is found!

I finally found a family. The process was ridiculous and kept jumping back and forth between The Netherlands and Germany. I found a couple of really great families in Blaricum, but it took forever for them to email me back so I wasn't sure if they wanted me to au pair for them anymore. Which is where my current family came in. They're from Erlangen, Germany and the dad is originally Irish and from Dublin. So, the second I said yes to my family, the family from Blaricum emailed me back and said they still want me to au pair for them. But, what can you do?

I can't wait to go. I'm sick of the city I'm in and want to branch out. Their current au pair is staying for a week while I'm there so she's going to show me around. She's been sending me pictures of the boys and my room and bathroom. The boys are two and three, so precious. They're so little and blond, and have the best names ever. Tiger and Ringo. Tiger. And. Ringo. My goal for this is to turn Ringo into a drummer.

I've also met a friend through Your Pants... Which sounds bad... But you'd get if you were a Nerdfighter... Okay, need an explanation? A Nerdfighter is someone that fights for nerds and was thought up by the author John Green and his brother Hank. They're vloggers on Youtube and if you wanna check out their stuff just search "vlogbrothers". Hank writes songs about things ranging from angler fish to Harry Potter, and he does a great job of it. Anyway, I have another person to show me around, which is good. And hopefully there will be a Nerdfighter gathering around the time I get there.

I'm not leaving until July 26th, and I'm going on a cruise with my mother, my four aunts and all their daughters in May. So, a count down of five months with a little trip breaking up those months. We'll see how stir crazy I go before I actually get to leave for either of these trips.

Updates will probably be few and far between until I get there or a little before. I'm also starting a collab channel on Youtube with some other people that are either studying or working abroad. So, keep an eye out for that.

- That's a picture of Erlangen Castle that I found on Wikipedia