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 :) 

Istanbul it is.

Had a skype call Sunday with the family with the 2 older kids (it happened to be the daughters birthday, she turned 9) They were so nice. Very warm and inviting. I talked with the mom mostly and a tiny bit with the kids. The boy is almost fluent in English and the girl needs to improve a little the mom said.
Not only do the kids speak Turkish and English, they are learning German in school!

It was a quick call (15 minutes) but it went so well and she said they would love to have me come au pair for them. We've exchanged a few emails between last night and this morning.

So, off to Istanbul I go :) I'll leave a few days after Christmas. I'll stay at least 3 months, possibly longer depending on a few things.

Istanbul.

I've been wanting to go there for a long time, so as of a few days ago, I'm just focusing on finding a HF there.

I've been talking a lot with 3 different families.
Fam 1 has a 2 month old baby girl.
Fam 2 has an 18 month old boy 
and Fam 3 has a 3 year old boy and an 8 month old girl.
*edit* also a 4th family with a 12 year old boy and 9 year old girl.
I was originally talking with them at the same time I was talking with my HF in Italy in the very beginning ..they've just sent me an email asking if i'm still interested. we'll see where it goes :)

Last night I ordered two touristy~ guide books just for the heck of it.
I checked airfare to see how much it would be.... it's so cheap. 

Istanbul it is then ;)

Fam #1 who I liked so well, has had to pass. For family reasons I was told and are 100% understandable. I'm so bummed. It would've been such a wonderful opportunity. I told her (HM) if the situation changes, she knows where to find me. Back to searching.

Progress?

I hadn't heard from fam #1 in about a week. I kept getting more emails from families (some leads to setting up skype interviews and most lead to nothing) and I found myself dragging them out as long as I could before setting up interviews hoping I would get a reply from fam #1. I know She/They are super busy so I waited until the end of the week to send one back saying basically, "hey, whats going on? are you still interested or should I move on?" (obv. not in those words but you get the idea.)

and it was basically just She's been super busy (which I knew) and said they aren't talking to any other candidates and are still really interested in me. She said give her a week and she would draw up an offer and send me some info.

!!!!!!

I'm pretty happy right now. Crossing my fingers it works out.

A dilemma?

I'm talking with a family that I think would be a super great match. They've got everything I've been looking for. Our emails are going super slow though. The mom has told me she thinks it could be a great match and she has a good feeling about it though. So that leaves me hanging....

I've been talking with other families during the time I've been emailing with fam #1. I can't figure out if I should tell them, "hey, I'm seriously considering another family, but if that doesn't work out I'd love to talk to you more" or just not mention it and hope I don't look like I'm wasting their time if something does end up working out with fam #1.

in the last week I've seriously considered families in
-Amsterdam
-China
-Poland
-Turkey
and Italy again.

but I keep going back to fam #1 and just being all "this would be soooo freaking perfect" and just holding out hope that waiting around for more emails to come through isn't just a waste of my time.

Maybe I'm being too picky. But in the end being too picky is probably a good thing and I wont be in over my head?

Starting to feel like I'm never going to find a match.

Ergh. I'm starting to get super frustrated.
I sent out more emails today to France, Germany and the Netherlands.
I'm starting to think it would be neat to just go to a bigger city in the US like New York or San Francisco but everyone here seems to want EU girls. womp womp.

A small update.

Since I've updated last I've talked a bit with a lovely american couple in Amsterdam. They only have one child, a new baby! If I am remembering correctly he is 3 weeks old :3 We had a Skype call a week ago and they said they had a few more people to talk to and would keep me updated. They want someone for a year! A year in Amsterdam would be pretty awesome.

I've also just started talking to a nice lady from Torino, Italy. It's not far from where I was last time. They've got two older kids (5 and 9, boy and girl) It's still early so I don't have much of a feel of them yet so we'll see what happens.

The third family I'm talking to is in the center of Rome (!!!) but has three kids under 4. I don't think it's going to go very far, the emails are very confusing. We'll see. 3 kids under 4 with what seems like not a lot of free time (the schedule looks like its all day 7 days a week, ahh) is not really something i'm interested in.

I've sent out I don't know how many emails since Monday. I got a few messages from families I didn't even contact myself who seemed pretty interested, so I replied and then I didn't hear anything back. womp. I'm stuck between choosing New York or Amsterdam. So I'm just going to wait it out and see how the conversations with the families from each one goes. Both cities would be amazing, soooooo win/win?

I wish I was better at writing.

I got an email from a girl today asking if I was still in Valencia and if I wanted to hang out :( I said no with a heavy heart and pointed her in the direction of my vlc friends. Then not much later got msg from one of said friends. It's weird how you can only know someone for a short period of time yet they make such an impression on you. I feel like I got to know more about some people in the span of three weeks than I know about most people who are constants in my life. It gives me headspins.

I have a host family!

in Valencia, Spain!

I'm so excited about everything and can't wait to start this new adventure :D

I should know Saturday if I'm going to Spain.

I've just skyped with (part of) the family again. Seriously, they are so nice and I really think we'd fit together. The dad wasn't there but I got to talk with the current au pair for a second and the little boy came in and said Hello and I think I almost died of cuteness.

She (the mom) told me they are talking to me and another girl and they are having a really hard time deciding because they really like the both of us. They're going to think about it for a few days and let me know. So we're going to talk again Saturday. gah. My fingers are crossed, I really want to be placed with them.

I just hung up from talking to a potential family.

From Valencia, Spain. They were so nice, and so freaking adorable. They have 2 kids. A boy (3) and a girl (16 months).  It was a short and sweet "lets just cut to the chase" type call, which I appreciate. I get so nervous before skyping with people. I usually end up fumbling my words and saying nonsense. Basically  just going over everything we have emailed about already... and a few other things. We're going to Skype again Thursday :)

Starting to talk to more host families...

Exciting~~

I've been keeping my eye out for families needing someone at the end of summer. I've gotten a few responses for mid-late August.

Hopefully I'll find a family in France or Spain. That'd be exciting.