Even as a little girl, I was incredibly fascinated by the USA, so I knew without a doubt that I wanted to go there too. Living like in all the high school movies, making a career as a cheerleader, watching football in my free time, and living in a picturesque suburb - that was the picture of American life I had in mind. The best way to reconcile my vision with reality was to spend a year as an au pair. I imagined it would be nice: just look after the kids for a bit and then enjoy life in a relaxed manner in my free time.
Application via Stepin and initial anticipation
First of all: Of course it's not quite as simple as you might imagine. But with a reliable partner at your side, a stay as an au pair can be easily organized. I turned to Stepin , a company that has been organizing work and travel stays, internships abroad, volunteer work stays, language trips and yes, au pair stays since 1997. You can choose between different offers, for example au pair in Iceland, Scandinavia, England, Australia, New Zealand or, as in my case, in the USA. Once the decision was made, the application process began and I soon received the long-awaited answer: Yes, you did it – have fun in Miami! It was supposed to start shortly - it was clear that the excitement was rising accordingly. My experiences with Stepin were consistently positive, but there are also a number of other au pair providers .
Miami and my time with the host family
Miami greeted me as I expected – warm, bright and sunny. I could describe the way I greeted my host family in exactly the same way: we got along really well straight away during our first telephone conversations as part of my application, and things were even a bit warmer when we actually met for the first time. My host parents' little daughter and son were very sweet (both went to kindergarten) and were very attached to me - which I really liked because I had heard from friends that they had some initial difficulties with their host children.
My everyday
In the morning around half past seven I had to get up, dress the children, have breakfast with them and then take them to kindergarten. The time was absolutely no problem for me as I was familiar with getting up early from my school days - plus you get so much more out of the day. I was supposed to pick up the two little ones again at twelve o'clock. I mostly used the meantime to do sports, explore the area, call or Skype with friends and family at home. At lunchtime I picked up my two favorites from kindergarten, cooked us a little something and spent the rest of the day with them in the mall, on the beach or eating ice cream, at the playground or at the zoo.
My host mother usually cooked in the evenings, and sometimes I did it too. I mostly spent my free time with other au pairs that I met there. Miami has numerous restaurants, a great zoo, the Seaquarium and many other must-see attractions! Some weekends I had free and used this time to explore American cities with friends or alone. These included, for example, Chicago, New York, the Keys and San Francisco. During my year as an au pair, I got to know and love the American culture, the people and, above all, Miami, Florida and my host family. I wouldn't want to miss this au pair experience for any price in the world!
Being an au pair is not only fun, you also get to know the country, people and culture of the respective destination country. I'll tell you how to become an au pair in my experience report.
