Hello fellow adventurers,
the day has come that I got mail from the agency telling me what to do next. So for now, the days of sleeping 'till noon and eating pizza while bingewatching Chuck are over. Tomorrow I will try to get all of my documents ready or rather apply to get them.... Germans and their paperwork... and make an appointment at the embassy to get my visa, which is more complicated than it sounds, trust me.
So fast forward 8 hours:
Those few people who read the crap I post on Twitter know what I did on Thursday. Basically I had to get pictures taken for my Visa and international drivers licence. So after I spent 22€ on incredibly ugly pictures of my face I went to get my CRC (Criminal Record Certificate) which also cost me 13€ and I'll get that in the mail in a couple of days. So thus far not that complicated.
Next I went to get my drivers licence which is like a little booklet that says you can drive internationally. Pretty self-explanatory.. this was 17€..
Expensive but it's necessary apparently and I managed to get everything on my own.
So now I had to get a health evaluation from my doctor which I thought was pretty easy too because there are just a couple of simple questions about what inoculations I have and my basically non-existant history of diseases/illnesses/mental craziness, my height, pulse etc.
BUT NO. I have to make a tuberculosis test before because I'm not inoculated! So today (Friday) I woke up super friggin' early (8 am) and went to a special lab thingy were they took a shit-ton of blood from me. Just this cost me almost 100€ (WTH?) After my doctor gets the result of that he can fill out the evaluation form that is oh so time-consuming and also expensive, oh wonder. I already have an appointment for that on Monday. Hopefully the test says I don't have tuberculosis which I don't but tests aren't 100% accurate and if it tests positive I have to make a chest X-Ray to prove I'm healthy. And honestly, not a fan of X-Rays. They're not very healthy and also I need to get all my documents together soon! Cross your fingers everybody!
Back to Thursday-night. I still had to fill out the D-160 form to apply for my Visa, which took AGES! After you do that: Good luck finding out how you pay the 160$ fee (to make an appointment at the embassy). That whole thing took like 3 hours because they want to know EVERY SINGLE DETAIL ABOUT YOUR LIFE and you have to check everything a thousand and one times because if you spell something wrong they will reject your application... I think at one point I threw my phone and several other objects at the wall in frustration (don't worry my phone's fine) and I screamed at my parents on multiple occasions during that time. So on Monday, when the embassy gets the money, I can make an appointment and hopefully I get one for next week or so. After you go to the embassy it takes about 8-10 days for your passport and Visa to arrive at your house, via snail mail.
So that's basically what I already did and will do next week. I already made copies of everything I also have to send to the agency and copies of that for me to take to the US with me. On that note: I still have to refill my printer... and the agency has already booked my flight for September 29th at 8:30am with six other AuPairs that fly from the same airport.
COUNTDOWN: 37 Days 10 Hours 21 Minutes 40 Seconds
Stay awesome,
Ellie
Freitag, 22. August 2014
Sonntag, 17. August 2014
Hello fellow adventurers! - What happened so far.
Hello fellow adventurers!
To everyone who "accidentally" found their way to this blog: "HI! Don't get scared, stay, enjoy while it lasts."
So with this post I will formally pop this blogs' cherry. Yes you heard correctly. So, first things first: Some stalkerish people will notice that I have two other blogs. They're old, very, very old and I will NOT post anything there. I just keep them around for when the nostalgia hits me. If you can't resist, go there and read all of the embarrassing things there.
I'm not saying in 10 or so years this won't be embarrassing to me, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm partly nostalgic about blogging this time around and I'm also giving in to the mainstream and starting, of all the things, a diary-blog. But that would be boring right? So make it an Au Pair diary! Isn't it convenient that I'm ACTUALLY going to be an Au Pair in the US of A?!
Don't leave yet. I'll try to make this at least a bit funny. These are my uncensored thoughts and experiences for the next year, so suck it.
I'll try to post every day starting September 29th, which is my departure date. Until then I guess I'll post when I have news or feel extremely bored, out of my mind bored.
Now to the cheesy part guys and girls:
I've wanted to be an Au Pair for 4 or 5 years now. That means I was 13/14 when I first heard about this programme. The US has always fascinated me as a country and today I know more about their culture/ celebrities etc. than my own and I've never actually set foot into this beautiful country of stars and stripes. So it was pretty fast pretty clear that I wanted to do this. Back then it was a fantasy, I would've never imagined to come true (shocker: it did though!). So I got more into this idea, my mom would call it obsessed. I read books, scoured the internet for days, put a whole folder with all the information together and worked my butt of for the last 3 years to get all the necessary experience.
A year or so ago I then found the right organization for me: Cultural Care. So far, they've been great. Every step of the way they make sure you have all the necessary information, are prepared and get everything done in time.
After I sent in my final application in, in the beginning of May 2014, a lot of time went by. I graduated, which was the greatest relief of my life, holy sh..., I survived High School and finals with an acceptable score and now, because I'm a control freak, had to find a plan B in case this crazy Au Pair fantasy didn't work out after all. I have already begun to make peace with the idea of not having a year off between school and college, because I haven't heard from the agency in a long while. So I applied to a shit-ton of colleges and, oh wonder, only got accepted to the one in my home town (YET). And after that, everything went so unbelievingly fast that I don't even know what happened. I got a couple of matches fairly quickly and I had contact to one family that I talked to/skyped with every day for a week until they vanished from my account without a word of explanation. Which was a good thing, becaue I was starting to get a weird feeling about this family. So a couple of matches, that didn't contact me at all, later I was matched with a family living near San Francisco, California, USA, America, Earth. At first I was a bit sceptic about them, because they had 3 dogs, 2 hamsters and a turtle. Also 3 boys!
But I promised myself to be open and not turn down a family judging by what they wrote in their profile. So I agreed to skype with the host-mom and we just clicked right away! Another day and skype call went by and I met the whole family already. We decided not to waste anymore time and made the match final! I couldn't really believe what was happening until I checked my account again last Friday night (I did that every five minutes to make sure the match was still there) and saw this:
So now I am going to get all the necessary documents, Visa etc. together, say good bye to everyone at home and fly to America I guess o.O. I still can't believe I get to say and actually do this!
COUNTDOWN: 42 days, 20 hrs, 34 mins, 15 secs.
Stay awesome,
Ellie
To everyone who "accidentally" found their way to this blog: "HI! Don't get scared, stay, enjoy while it lasts."
So with this post I will formally pop this blogs' cherry. Yes you heard correctly. So, first things first: Some stalkerish people will notice that I have two other blogs. They're old, very, very old and I will NOT post anything there. I just keep them around for when the nostalgia hits me. If you can't resist, go there and read all of the embarrassing things there.
I'm not saying in 10 or so years this won't be embarrassing to me, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm partly nostalgic about blogging this time around and I'm also giving in to the mainstream and starting, of all the things, a diary-blog. But that would be boring right? So make it an Au Pair diary! Isn't it convenient that I'm ACTUALLY going to be an Au Pair in the US of A?!
Don't leave yet. I'll try to make this at least a bit funny. These are my uncensored thoughts and experiences for the next year, so suck it.
I'll try to post every day starting September 29th, which is my departure date. Until then I guess I'll post when I have news or feel extremely bored, out of my mind bored.
Now to the cheesy part guys and girls:
I've wanted to be an Au Pair for 4 or 5 years now. That means I was 13/14 when I first heard about this programme. The US has always fascinated me as a country and today I know more about their culture/ celebrities etc. than my own and I've never actually set foot into this beautiful country of stars and stripes. So it was pretty fast pretty clear that I wanted to do this. Back then it was a fantasy, I would've never imagined to come true (shocker: it did though!). So I got more into this idea, my mom would call it obsessed. I read books, scoured the internet for days, put a whole folder with all the information together and worked my butt of for the last 3 years to get all the necessary experience.
A year or so ago I then found the right organization for me: Cultural Care. So far, they've been great. Every step of the way they make sure you have all the necessary information, are prepared and get everything done in time.
After I sent in my final application in, in the beginning of May 2014, a lot of time went by. I graduated, which was the greatest relief of my life, holy sh..., I survived High School and finals with an acceptable score and now, because I'm a control freak, had to find a plan B in case this crazy Au Pair fantasy didn't work out after all. I have already begun to make peace with the idea of not having a year off between school and college, because I haven't heard from the agency in a long while. So I applied to a shit-ton of colleges and, oh wonder, only got accepted to the one in my home town (YET). And after that, everything went so unbelievingly fast that I don't even know what happened. I got a couple of matches fairly quickly and I had contact to one family that I talked to/skyped with every day for a week until they vanished from my account without a word of explanation. Which was a good thing, becaue I was starting to get a weird feeling about this family. So a couple of matches, that didn't contact me at all, later I was matched with a family living near San Francisco, California, USA, America, Earth. At first I was a bit sceptic about them, because they had 3 dogs, 2 hamsters and a turtle. Also 3 boys!
But I promised myself to be open and not turn down a family judging by what they wrote in their profile. So I agreed to skype with the host-mom and we just clicked right away! Another day and skype call went by and I met the whole family already. We decided not to waste anymore time and made the match final! I couldn't really believe what was happening until I checked my account again last Friday night (I did that every five minutes to make sure the match was still there) and saw this:
So now I am going to get all the necessary documents, Visa etc. together, say good bye to everyone at home and fly to America I guess o.O. I still can't believe I get to say and actually do this!
COUNTDOWN: 42 days, 20 hrs, 34 mins, 15 secs.
Stay awesome,
Ellie
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