Bittersweetness

As the jet lag and time difference has started to wear off, the homesickness and feeling lost has started to kick in. Today was the first day I ventured out into Paris for some sightseeing, however not alone. Luckily, one of my host families friends just one town over has an American au pair as well. Her name is Leslie, she is 23 too, and graduated in May (like me) from University of Texas. We had been e-mailing back and fourth prior to me coming here and today we finally got to meet in person. She is awesome and we hit it off! I'm so thankful to have her here because she has been here since September so really knows her way around now. Not to mention she is pretty good at French so I'm definitely using her as my crutch for now. She wants to travel as much as possible as do I so looks like I found my travel buddy!

We took the Metro into Paris and we walked around the Louvre and a few other parts, of which I can tell you zero names I remember. After walking around a bit and enjoying some macaroons, we met up with 3 other American au pairs for some lunch in an area called Le Marais (commonly known as the Jewish area of Paris). We ate falafel's and all exchanged stories of our host families. It was pretty funny because it truly reminded me of the maids from The Help all talking about the families they work for... I guess in a way, we are "the help."

The kids are all very polite and friendly. The 3 eldest will double cheek kiss me hello and goodbye which is so cute. The youngest... well he is 2 and half. I have been around 4 year olds enough to know how they act and I figured it would be similar. WRONG. Boy, does that year and a half make a difference. Now I really understand why they call it the "terrible two's." Yikes. Nonetheless, he is a cutie (sometimes).

Every time I've talked to family or friends back home, I laugh at the eerie similarity I find between myself and the women on The Bachelor. The cliche saying of "I didn't expect it to be THIS hard" is starting to ring more and more true. I knew there would be trials and tribulations going into this, but now being here and feeling all those emotions for real... I won't lie, it's harder than I thought it would be. From trying to find my place with the family, to dealing with the 2 year old who understands English but only speaks in French, to not being able to communicate with almost all of the outside world, to not being able to talk to my family and friends much due to the 9 hour difference, it's a little rough right now. I know everything will get better over time but I just hope that day will hurry up!

Here's some pictures I took from today

Cheers,

Aubree

Leslie and I at the Louvre 

Macaroons!

Falafel