Holy smokes!!

Holy smokes!

I was going to title this post something along the lines of “Only one month left (before I have Christmas break and then travel north to Bremen for a year)” but that seemed only slightly obnoxious.

The other week, I was going to do a post about having been in Germany for a month already, but now it’s closer to 2 months!

And today marks one month left for me being an au pair for this family…

I cannot believe that I have done so much in this short amount of time!

*Part* of the reason I picked this first family was their location.

(I was partially thinking…this’ll be just like the Sound of Music. I’m in the Alps, on a lake, taking care of kids. The younger girl went from 16mos to 17, so that song had to be sung, etc. etc.)

I mean, come on.

The Bodensee/Lake Constance borders 3 countries (Germany, Switzerland, and Austria) already, but I’m only a hop skip and a jump away from France…and then there’s Liechtenstein and a bit further south there’s Italy.

So, being here for such a short time means that my weekends off have been FILLED with travels!

So far, I’ve been to:

• Oktoberfest/Munich/Dachau
• Konstanz, Germany
• Meersburg, Germany
• Bregenz, Austria
• Colmar, France
• Freiburg, Germany
• Zurich, Switzerland
• Salzburg, Austria
• Hallstatt, Austria
• Füssen, Germany
• and other small towns along and around the lake/see

In the books for the rest of 2014, I have:

• Lucerne, Switzerland
• Strasbourg, France (voted best Christmas Market in Europe for 2014)
• Lindau, Germany (gorgeous town on the lake/see)
• Munich, Germany (because I haven’t really seen it!)
• Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany (because you’ve been on Pinterest)
• Nuremberg, Germany (because CHRISTMAS MARKETS!)

I still need to plan which order, but yeah…

CHRISTMAS MARKETS START NEXT WEEKEND!!! I am soooo excited!

Even though I won’t be able to see every place around here that I wanted to, that only gives me all the more reason to come back!! 😉

And for Christmas break, which starts a month from now, I am so hoping that everything works out and I get to see my friend (who I haven’t seen in real life since studying abroad in Sevilla 2 years ago but who is now teaching English over in Spain) and visit some more, TBA destinations.

(Spoiler: I’m thinking Prague, Vienna, and Budapest)

One thing that is a little er…LOT scary is that in one month, I will need to have taken and passed my German language test in order to apply for a visa and stay here legally once my free 90 days are up.

Pray for me.

So much to do, so little time.

I’m completely looking forward to everything, and then moving up to Bremen (FOR A YEAR) the beginning of January.

Hello!

Hello!! Rachel here. I tried this blogging thing back when I studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain for a year but was unsuccessful on two parts. One was that I didn’t keep up on it!! The other was that, I’ll be the first to admit it, it wasn’t well written. It was boring. Do you really care what I have for breakfast every day?? Or that the metro ride was X minutes long?

Doubtful.

So here I am again! As of right now, I plan to keep up with this thing as best as I can even after this year…

So what am I doing this year??

I’m going to au pair in Germany!!

I am so utterly excited I cannot control myself. I can hardly even sleep! I’ll be near Lake Constance until the end of 2014 and then Bremen for 2015. Look them up!! You won’t be disappointed!

I skyped both of the families that I will be staying with for at least 1.5 to 2 hours each the other week. While speaking with them, I just knew that they were the families for me.

It was such a fast process actually, and I’ll make sure to write a post about that in the future, but I just wanted to get this thing going!

If you know me, you know how much I love to travel. All aspects. The train/plane rides (except when I get motion sick…), the food, the architecture, the people, the different languages, the landscapes…oh! And the food of course!! I look forward to writing about all of these things in the future.

I promise to do better this time!

For now, 1 month until I land in Munich for Oktoberfest for a couple of days before heading over to Lake Constance to meet my first family!!

Until next time