Swell

I arrived in Hoboken on Friday night. I love it. The town is so cute and charming and GAH. Ton's of young people and young families and so many good places to eat. I am so excited for this year. I was a bit cautious since the previous nanny told me some not so good things about the family, but we've talked about it multiple times and I have no doubts we will have an amazing year. 

I've already met a few other au pairs, two live really close and are probably the sweetest ladies I've ever met. I can't wait to have all sorts of adventures with them. The three of us went into manhattan on Sunday and lawd. It is so surreal that I am living this close to new york freaking city. There are endless possibilities. This afternoon HM (I'm going to have to come up with a better acronym or code name for her because calling someone host mom who is only two years older than me is weird. yeah, both parents are only two years older than me. It was kinda weird at first, but we get along so well. It's kind of like having roommates I guess.) and I were talking about how we should be extra's in movies and go watch tv shows be filmed. So we spent the afternoon on google and I ended up replying to a few ads and how crazy would that be?! We also decided we are going to see Ed Sheeran together in Nov. Like, it's so great how well we get along and the baby... he is perfect! Rarely cries and is just a joy. HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY?!?!

New Jersey it is!

Got the job :)
I found out last weekend. I emailed their previous nanny early last week to get some feedback, but just heard back from her Sunday.... after I had said I would take the job. Some of the things she had to say weren't the greatest. I replied very fast hoping she could get back to me with some more info but I haven't heard from her again. I mentioned to the HF that I was concerned about what she had to say and they told me nothing was ever brought to their attention from this girl. That they were hurt she was so unhappy. Which makes me think a bit. These kinds of experiences are totally not worth it if you cant speak up for yourself. Communication is key. If you can't voice your opinion with the things you are unhappy about with the family, what do you expect other than to be miserable? I know it's hard, I've been in that situation, but really, whats the worst than can come of it?

Anyway, we are working things out and I will probably move over there in the next few weeks. I mentioned I was a bit unsure of committing for a year based on what this girl said. So I suggested we do a trial run. Say, 90 days and then re-evaluate then. If we get along and there are no problems then that's great and we can continue. If things are so swell, we will just part ways. They agreed. So we shall see what happens. 

New Jersey?

Possibly! Had a Skype call with a lovely family in NJ today. They are super close to NYC (just on the other side of the Hudson) and I'm super excited. I really hope something comes out of it. They only have one baby, 15 month old boy. So that's exciting.

 I would really love to return to Italy... but... this is:

1. closer to home, but still far enough away
2. less expensive
3. an amazing opportunity

It would be minimum of a year. So maybe I could put a little money aside for my next trip to Italy. Here's to hoping!

Looking like crazy for a new host family.

It's only been two weeks back home, and I'm already itching to leave. Looking to go back to Istanbul :) 

Next Stop:

London!

I'll leave Italy/Arrive in London June 15th. I can't believe it. Not only will I be living in London, but central :D:D like, a 10 minute walk to oxford street. Still pinching myself. 

ok, so...

I've written a few posts, on the blogger app on my ipod... and i log on to the actual website... THEY ARE NOT THERE. wtf. so bummed. 

anyway... a short bullet point post will have to do i guess:

• i am having, hands down, the best au pairing experience here. 
• i love my host fam soooo much! in only a month they've become family.
• my love for italian food just keeps getting bigger (pizaa/pasta/bread, all day errrday :D)
• I'm playing this game of "how many pairs of sunglasses can i lose/damage in a month" current score: 3
• I've started a language class. 
• no homesickness, what-so-ever! woot!
• well, i miss my cat. 
• does that count?
• i have so many pics ill try to upload somewhat soon
• egypt was amazing; that will get its own post. 
• here are two pics that saved to my draft folder, even though i hit publish
• way to go blogger app.

Still alive, promise.

I made it here. After a cab, plane, two buses and a car. I'm finally settling in. It's been a little more than a week. I have so much to write about but I feel like I never have enough time to actually get on the computer. I'm going to try to write some post on my ipod while I'm on the train next time. 

anyway.

I love Italy.
and
I miss the chaos of Istanbul.

Varese is really nice. I think I'm going to really like it here. We live super close to the city center, so that's convenient. The kids are great, I love love loooooooove this family. The baby, who i look after the most, took no time in getting used to/attached to me. It's great. I love him to bits already. The girl, who is 3, is still getting used to me I think. She understands English very well but wont speak it much with me. So we're just giving her time. She'll do it when shes ready. She speaks to me 1093752 miles a minute in italian though, so that should help building my language skills ;) hopefully ill be taking a class here soon...

the municipality building in varese. amazing view :)

i went to milan last week. ugh. i love this place.

hopefully this weekend i'll be going to visit my first host family. if not this, then next. I'm really looking forward to seeing them. Also looking forward to making some new friends here. I miss all my Istanbul pals :(

promise ill be posting more soon ;)

Tomorrow is my last full day here!

I can't believe I've been here 3 months. It doesn't seem possible. I don't want it to end, but at the same time i'm ready to move on to the next adventure. I've eaten tons of amazing food, met so many wonderful people, and seen such beautiful sights.

*sigh*

I hope to write a lot of things down about my time here once I get to Italy.
right now though I'm going to log off and go get some rest so I can enjoy the day tomorrow (even if it's going to rain :-/) we're getting waffles!!!! om nom nom.

Istanbul Archaeology Museums

 Istanbul Archaeology Museums/İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri are overwhelming. haha I'll be straightforward. But for the price, you can't beat it! We went Tuesday and neither of us knew the price before hand. It's located right in the heart of all the tourist attractions, and directly next to Topkapi palace, so I was already prepared to pay a lot. Nope! 10 Lira! Score! for 3 museums  A lot of things were under construction (along with everything else in the city at this time of the year, womp womp) but still. h-o-l-y c-o-w. There was so much! I didn't even get to half way through the second building and I was ready for a nap. So much to take in a read. Everything is ancient. I think it's amazing to see all of that kind of stuff since we don't really have it in america since we are such a young country. 

apparently pre-nups have been around forever. I wish the text would have shown up better :(

"tiled pavilion"

inside the pavilion. I die. gorgeous.

only 10th century. no biggie.

a few random pics.

Because I am doing nothing today. Sitting here getting my things ready for my trip and doing laundry. I'm on my 5th cup of Çay I think. haha, oops.

ready to go!

I dont even know why I bought halley. It's gross. But for one lira, i'll take it. Chocolate is so expensive here :|

Spring has Sprung!

Finally! It's been so warm here the past few days. Today I left the house and left my coat at home ;) Usually I take it and by the time I get to the bus stop (only a 3 minute walk from the house) I am sweating and regret bringing it. So today I threw caution to the wind and just left it home and brought a sweater. OMG. It was so nice. It was in the 60*F range. I ate lunch outside in the sun and gbslkbgalgajdkkl. It was bliss. I snapped a few pics of our magnolia tree this morning. It's so gorgeous. Tomorrow I bet it'll be even more beautiful. The whole city is looking amazing, at the end of last week flowers were planted just about everywhere. On the highway they have the skyline of the city outlined in flowers. In Kadikoy there are some nice outlines of birds I want to try to take pics of. 

Au Pairs in Istanbul

All the au pairs I know here have all had a hard time meeting other au pairs. One told me that it's common to just meet other girls through your host family. Like, their friends have au pairs and they will introduce you to them. There wasn't many places online to find/meet up since Istanbul is not the most popular place to au pair (although, there is tons more here than I thought. and apparently even more in the summer) So my little group of friends and I thought it would be a good idea to start a group where it would be a little easier to connect. There is on fb group but it's not used much. I also don't think there are many actual au pairs on it. It seems to be more turkish, live in nanny types? ah well.

so.

the new facebook group.

--> Au Pairs in Istanbul <--

Some Instagrams

the sunset a few weeks ago. this is the mid way point between my friends house and mine. this pic is looking down hill. when it's clear (no smog lol) it's a beautiful view.

on the ferry. heading from uskudar to Kabataş

om nom nom

just a bit of traffic ;)

valentines day on istiklal caddesi

galatasaray v schalke
my first football match! it was pretty awesome, to say the least.

Yesterday, I went to a Hamam.

from wiki: 
A person taking a Turkish bath first relaxes in a room (known as the warm room) that is heated by a continuous flow of hot, dry air, allowing the bather to perspire freely. Bathers may then move to an even hotter room (known as the hot room) before splashing themselves with cold water. After performing a full body wash and receiving a massage, bathers finally retire to the cooling-room for a period of relaxation

Cinili means tiled. Apparently there are gorgeous tiles at this hamam... but there are all on the mens side. womp womp. It was so nice though. Very relaxing. We (I went with another au pair) got there and didn't know what to do at first. The staff knew a few words in English and we knew a few words in Turkish and we figured it out. There's a sign on the front door that says their will be a strong smell, but don't worry, it's just the history you are smelling ;) We got a kick out of that. We changed and were led into the warm room and omg it was so nice. Like it says above, you sit in one spot and they give you a bowl and soap and you wash yourself for a bit and relax. It's like a sauna, very warm. There is a big raised thing of marble in the middle of the room, heated marble! I die. You lay there while one of the ladies scrubs off all your dead skin. I felt like a snake shedding a layer of skin. There was so much. You rinse after and then move to a different room. There is the option of having a massage, but we opted out of that this time. The ladies were super nice, we went out to change and sat with them for awhile. There was even a cat at one point. I don't think they wanted him in there but they weren't exactly super fast with throwing him out ;) I think i might be going back before i leave :) 

After the hamam we walked across the street to see cinili cammi, the "tiled mosque", that I had read was really beautiful. Everyone was leaving as we walked up so we had to have someone unlock the door on the inside for us. It was breathtaking. I kept saying "wow" over and over. That's all i could think of. the guy who let us in was standing super close to us the whole time and i felt really awkward about taking pictures. google it if you want to see it, i guess? it wont do it justice though ;)


We went to have lunch down in uskudar after our little adventure... and while we were eating a cameraman and a guy with a microphone (they are everywhere! I barely notice them anymore. There has to be a lot of news to report on with a city this big ;) ) must have heard us speaking English and came up and asked to interview us. I don't remember exactly what he said at first other than "are you finished with your meal?" when i replied no, he pulled up a chair. so. But they were with Fenerbahçe TV, which i guess is a big deal? It was awkward. Not even gonna lie. I felt like a deer in head lights. They asked which team we supported (galatasaray, the only team i know/bc i got to go to their match) They asked where we were from, what we did (he actually knew what an au pair was, holla~) where we were staying, how long we've been here and how we liked the city. And if we would predict the score for the game coming up this weekend. Then he asked us to speak Turkish :| :| :| omg. it was the worst. my Turkish is so bad. I think i said hello, good morning, soup, fork and knife. A+. BUT! I did notice today, I can now recognize the phrase "where are you from" I heard it three times today. When I heard it in Turkish I didn't even think before I replied.
so... progress!

Probably should have mentioned

two weeks ago I bought my plane ticket to Italy! I leave Istanbul March 29th.
i'm already super sad to leave, i love it here so much so i'm trying not to think about it. I've gotten a few offers (including one from my current host fam) to come back for the summer and i'm really considering it.

can't wait to be back in Italy though ;)

Galata Tower

Yesterday I finally did another one of the "must see" things that are in all the touristy books that are in my room. I went to Galata Tower. The view was spectacular. Maybe not worth the price of admission though (i think it was 15 lira? I'm cheap ok) The city never ends. It just keeps going... past the horizon. It's overwhelming to think of how many people live here. I'm finally used to the crowds. At first it was weird to have so many people every where all the time, now i don't really notice it. One of the first things I noticed was how everyone is always walking so fast and trying to be first for everything. Yesterday I realized I've started doing it now too. When the bus shows up I push to try to get in first, or if someone is going a little slow on the sidewalk i huff past them. Must be something about this city ;)

the view towards uskudar (home!)

looking towards Eminönü

So much to write about!

but it will have to wait a bit :-/

this past week was super busy even though my host family was out of the country on holiday and this week the kids are off school + me and the one of the kids are sick.

promise i'll post a bunch soon... when the dust settles :)

Some Instagrams

Here's some pics from the last few days. I can't believe I've been here nearly a month. It's flown by. For the most part, I love it here. I feel at home, it's nice. The pollution however is not. I feel so gross by the time I get home in the afternoon. Its hard to breathe sometimes too. The food here is too good. HD said I should start takin pics of everything I eat lol. Not a bad idea since I can't pronounce anything or will never have some of it again. This week my HF is on holiday I switzerland. I'm staying with their friends, who happen to be the host family to a really great au pair friend I've made here. So this week should be interesting. I'm looking forward to it :)


(also today I bought contacts. I didn't need an RX and I payed 36 USD. I'm still not over it. 36! I'm hoping to get some new glasses while I'm here too, I hope I can find a good deal ;) )

Snow

It snowed a few days ago! For two days straight. School was closed and everything. It's pretty to look at but it's so cold and now I have lost my voice. Womp.

Things are starting to go so well.

Now that there is a bit of a routine established, things are going so well. My jetlag has worn off I think :)  This is going to be such a great experience. I really like these kids and I haven't even been here a week. The little girl is so sweet, but she is also 8 years old. She has her moments. The boy was shy at first but he has warmed up. His English is so good, I was (and still am) a bit surprised. 

Today I got out for the first real~ time and with the help of a friend figured out the transportation thing. (mainly i just followed him around while he explained which things go which places. there so many options! i think i rode 5 buses, 2 metros and ferry today) 

Omg, the food. It is so amazing. I had way too much at lunch. It was so good i was still full at dinner time. The mother in law just arrived here today to stay for a month, for dinner she made a traditional meal from her region (from the south of the country) and oh my gosh. I forgot I was full and ate so much. I can not move right now.