Au Pairing in Spain - the first two weeks

Hi everyone!

Somehow I've been in Spain two weeks already. The time has flown by, but I do feel very settled in the family. I'm working in a village south of Madrid for a family with three girls: Lucia (11), Leana (6) and Maeva (3). The mum (Silvia) is French, learnt Spanish at university and has been married to her Spanish husband (Angel) for thirteen years, so her Spanish is excellent! But it's really nice to have the opportunity to speak French with her, and her family, who live nearby. It was especially helpful at the beginning when I was finding Spanish very challenging.

For the first week and a half the girls were still at school, so I spent my mornings getting used to the house, reading, preparing English lessons and of course making the most of the sunshine and the pool!

In the afternoons I would collect the girls from school, and we'd play some games and go in the pool once the parents got back from work.

I've been accepted as part of the family and I feel so lucky for that! I've been for dinner with the family at the grandparents house, I've been to friends' birthday parties and I've been on days out with the family, for example at the weekend we went to the river with two other families...

And I was invited to see Leana graduate from primary school too...

Now the the girls have finished school, I have a routine for the week. In the mornings we get up (the girls around 10/11am now!) and have breakfast together. Then I do about an hour of English with them, depending on how we're feeling. Then we have a choice of activities; playing games, watching a film, going to the park, cooking etc. I'm going to try and get into a routine of a certain activity on each day as well to make things easier and have a variety. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings I go to zumba, and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings I do an English-Spanish exchange with a lady in the town. One hour in each language practising reading, writing, speaking and grammar. It's very helpful! I'm also going to be giving extra English lessons to Lucia and Dario, the son of the lady I'm doing the exchange with.

Saturdays and Sundays I have off, but it is difficult to have time to myself unless I go out of the house. Silvia has been very kind in organising activities for me on Saturdays. The first weekend I did a bike tour of Madrid (of course, being me with my awful balance and apparently rusty cycling skills, I managed to fall off right in the city centre!) and this weekend I went to the Palacio Real for a tour and visited the cathedral and some gardens in the surrounding area. Here are some pictures of my time in Madrid:

The Temple of Debod 

La Plaza de España

La Plaza Mayor 

The Crystal Palace

A beautiful rose garden in one of the many parks of Madrid 

The royal palace - el Palacio Real

The cathedral

There have been a few challenges, of course. The language being the main one. I learnt two years of accelerated Spanish at university, but forgot a lot of it during my time in Austria, so especially at the beginning it was tough. I feel like I'm not at a point where I understand a fair bit, but producing the language is still hard sometimes, which makes giving instructions and disciplining the girls tough. I don't have to discipline too much, but Leana is very headstrong, and sometimes makes a massive fuss out of small things, so that can be challenging. But overall, I feel very comfortable here and I think this is the best au pair experience I could have hoped for :)

Thanks for reading!

Laura