The Au pair Diaries

On Tuesday, July 9th, I came home from a two-month trip to Europe. The trip began in the middle of May, but that’s not exactly where this story starts. 

It starts with me in February in the corner room of my big sorority house. It was dark, I was pale, and the Syracuse winter had already frozen my heart and it was just barely the beginning. It wasn’t that I was sad. I just felt like something was missing from my life, and it did not help that my feed was filled with friends everywhere, but here. From Austria to Australia. From Spain to Switzerland.

It wasn’t that I was necessarily jealous of my friends, I think it just highlighted more deeply the fear I have always had that I am simply running out of time. To do what I want. To see what I want. To be who I want. To go to every corner of the world. 

In a casual conversation with a professor, whose office hours I can frequently be found, she said she was teaching a class this summer in London. It’s like I was asking for an invitation to ditch what I was supposed to do this summer (an internship) and do what I wanted to do (go to Europe alone). And there the invitation was, sitting right in front of me.

I spent the next few weeks stumbling around for ways to extend my stay across the Atlantic, and travel past London. I landed on the idea of being an au pair. I signed up for aupair.com, filled out my profile, and was immediately flooded with responses. 

Naomi from Spain and her three kids

Beatrice from Italy and her three kids 

Jenna from the UK and her two kids

and Vanessa from Italy and her one kid.

And after a few times chatting with Vanessa, we had plans for a summer month in Eraclea Mare. A small beach town 30 minutes north of Venice.

Of course, this wouldn’t come with some extreme hesitation from a few acquaintances. I had a man out at a bar at school tell me “That’s not gonna be good for your resume”. I could’ve explained to him that there was so much more I needed to learn first from traveling. I would have explained that it was to strengthen my Italian. I could have said that I want more than anything to go to Italy. That I can’t live my life in the pursuit of a resume. I think I just responded, “I didn’t ask”. 

Plus, it is never a good idea to take unsolicited advice from random men at the bar. 

Cut to three months later and I had a one-way ticket to Europe, a small suitcase, a backpack, and my passport that up until this point only had a stamp. 

My trip began with a week in the south of France and a quick three-credit class in London, but I’ll share those stories another time. 

I remember how hard it was to leave London. I loved it there. Not only did I make good friends that were staying there, but there was also a sense of nerves that I was about to be stuck with strangers. 

I often say everything brave I have done in this life has started with a sleepless night before. So that’s exactly what happened. I left packing till the last minute, so I had something to accomplish because I knew I would be awake and thinking. I ran through what happens if I don’t like them. What happens if they don’t like me? What happens if I get homesick, what happens if I get sick (cut to me having strep 48 hours later)? What if... What if… What if… 

I reminded myself that the reward was probably going to outweigh the risk with this one. And I reasoned with myself whether it was good or bad; I know I will learn so much about myself. If it’s bad, it’s only thirty days, and you can do anything bad for thirty days. (Spoiler alert: they were far from bad).

Here is how the thirty days were spent:

The Family 

So I settled in with my small family in a small beach house. The four of us. It was close quarters and therefore it felt easy to feel close to them by the end. I had my room and access to a balcony, but every other space was filled with the family. Filled with the joy of Italian bambini from the town gathered together to play games. Filled with Venetian dialects from the guests. Filled with various attempts to piece together English sentences. Filled with their friends, their food, their stories, and their lives. I was witness to it all. 

The Food and The Wine 

Since being home, I love to casually drop that the parents I stayed with made wine. I will probably drop that fact into a conversation every so often for the rest of my life. Remember that time I was young and free and spent June on the coast of Italy with Italian winemakers, it will simply be part of my lore from here on out. I never really drank wine before. Now I appreciate the art behind a cool glass with a seafood dish. The art of popping a new bottle with dinner, and having someone fill up my glass after every sip. They never let it hit the bottom. As a person who loves history, there was something beautiful about sipping wine in front of someone who knew the entire history of the bottle, who knew the story. Smelt the grapes and tasted the wine before it was all bottled, and definitely perfected the art of enjoying a good glass of wine. 

The Language Barrier 

I took six years of Italian. Five years of high school and two semesters of college. I know a decent amount of Italian (I try to not block out EVERYTHING from high school). I’ve read Dante. I have conjugated my verbs and made flashcards for the vocab tests. In practice, it is much harder. I knew this. The first few days were lonely. It was hard being around only Italian. The mother spoke English, but unless she was talking directly to me, the whole room was in Italian. I caught on quickly. I found beauty in the confusion. And I focused on the importance of my words, as it was only a few in each other's languages that we shared. It was interesting explaining a topic to the mother and having her translate it all to the rest of the room. It was a new lens I had to use to view the environment around me with.

The Beach on the Adriatic Sea

The beach was a quick five-minute walk from the house; almost always with a stop at the market on the way for a cold crisp Diet Coke. I started my day at the beach by myself and a good book. I grew up on the water. I spent my summers at a sailing camp. I was practically a fish from the ages of seven to twelve. Since then, I have never consecutively spent that much time in the ocean. This was the first time, for thirty days straight, I floated in the sea. A new sea, oceans away. The Adriatic Sea. It was always warm; both the sun and the sea. On the colder days, the family would laugh at the thought of me going in the water. It’s too cold they would say not realizing how used to colder weather and water I had at home. The temperature was a dream to me. 

I left with a pit in my stomach that I would never see these people again. I have always hated goodbyes. It felt weird to begin and end with fear. To begin with, the fear that it may not work out. To end with the fear that it was about to be gone forever. On my way out for a final weekend by myself in Venice, the father, Fabio, told me to take a bottle of prosecco for the road. I explained I had one all packed up in my suitcase for home. He said “Oh yes, but what if you want to drink tonight” in broken English. So I left with a pit in my stomach, two kisses on my cheeks, and two bottles of their prosecco. 

It was nice to be reminded that even across the world; it was the simplest things that mattered to me. That made my experience my experience. The sound of the ocean, a crisp glass of wine, a tacky keychain from a gift shop, and a runny ice cream were some of the best parts. The most vivid memories. That as long as I continue to find joy in the beauty of the small things in life. I found that if that is always the ability to learn and love something new; a new word in a new language, a new type of seafood, a new culture to learn all about, I can continue to enjoy this life. 

After thirty days, with most of my time all by myself, I also took away that I could do this life alone. I just need me. I have great friends and family is important of course, but if I had to I could do this life all by myself just by the excitement of the new experiences around me. The excitement in the possibility that I can do bold things for the rest of my life.