Around this time last year, I began to think about spending part of my summer away as an Au pair. I wanted to try something new and I’m very glad I did.

I study Spanish as part of my degree so I decided that I would like to spend a few weeks of the summer in Spain. My best option was to Aupair. My cousin Cliana and a friend Ellen who had both aupaired previously recommended an Aupair website that they had successfully used called Aupair World. I put up a profile in Spanish as my Spanish would be quite good and families who were interested in my profile contacted me. Two families whom I was interested in I set up a Skype interview with. The family whom I felt I connected with most was the family I choose.

I stayed with them for 7 weeks in Catalonia and had a most wonderful experience with a fabulous family. If you are interested in Aupairing there are a few things to do and to be aware of.

1. 1. Decide early if you want to go away for the summer. You want a good choice for families.
   2. In deciding early and booking your flights early you save money. My flights were nearly 200 euro dearer if I had booked later.
   3. You need to decide what age group of children you want to look after, young kids or older, boys or girls.
   4. Do you want to be near a city or outside? This is important if you are learning a language as you will want to practice your language.
   5. What are your duties, what is the money you will earn? It is a cultural exchange also so you don’t want to be an unhappy cheap babysitter.
   6. Be open to new experiences. Making an effort with the language, people, culture and food.
   7. Don’t be too worried about meeting up with other Aupairs. I made friends with some of the locals and had a great time and made friends I’m still in contact with.
   8. Remember if it’s not working out and you’re unhappy you can simply just book a flight home, no summer is meant to be miserable!!!

The link for the site I used is aupairworld.com