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.
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- Decide early if you want to go away for the summer. You want a good choice for families.
- In deciding early and booking your flights early you save money. My flights were nearly 200 euro dearer if I had booked later.
- You need to decide what age group of children you want to look after, young kids or older, boys or girls.
- 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.
- 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.
- Be open to new experiences. Making an effort with the language, people, culture and food.
- 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.
- 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
