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| My amazing Italian flag bow that Amie made for me! |
So I've been putting this off for quite a while now, and I was considering not doing it at all. However I think, if only for the fact that it means I can stop avoiding peoples' questions and just point them towards this blog post for answers, I should definitely write it. I can also imagine that it will be very therapeutic!
Anyway, for those who don't know, I had a bit of a (mis)adventure a few weeks ago in Italy. I had planned to spend a year there, as an au-pair for a family. I chose a family from Rozzano, a town about 50 minutes from Milan. I went. It didn't work out. It worked out in an epically bad way. I came home....That's the very short and occasionally curt answer I have been giving most people when they've asked about it. Here's the slightly longer version!
To start with, I have to admit that the decision was mightily rushed into. I am an incredibly indecisive person, but once I've made my mind up about something, there's really no changing it. I was originally going to Italy in March next year, just for a couple of months. Then, during a conversation with my mum, it was decided that I might as well go sooner rather than later, and why not?! Since graduating from university in July, I'd been sleeping during the day and working in a bar at night. I really didn't have anything to lose by just going for it. So I set up my au-pair profile and started contacting families.
As I said, once I've made my decision, I'm ridiculously stubborn, and there's no going back. I chose a family I liked the look of and messaged them. They messaged me back saying they needed someone ASAP. In a huge flurry of excitement, and with no time to think, I was there in 11 days.
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| This is not me. |
I don't really want to go into detail about the many things that went wrong while I was there. Basically, the parents and I came to an agreement on the Friday afternoon that I would look for another family, and they would look for another au-pair. Then on the Saturday morning, the mum suddenly- and for absolutely no reason at all- decided that she couldn't trust me. We got into a huge argument. I had no choice but to leave. I spent three days stranded in Milan before flying home.
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| At least Milan had pretty things! |
I was lucky enough to encounter some lovely, extremely helpful people along the way. I nearly proposed to the adorable man in the Tourist Info Office because he was just so nice and helpful and
concerned. On the Saturday afternoon he got out a map and drew all over it, pointing me to a hostel and exactly how to get there. He even phoned them to check they had room for me (it was fashion week in Milan, and he was very worried that the hostels would all be full). I went back the next day to discuss with him how to get to the airport, and he was very relieved to see that I had made friends (with some lovely Australian girls from my hostel) and he was very happy to direct me. He also called me ma'am after everything he said, which was charming.
So what did I learn?
1. Loving kids and being able to look after somebody else's, while living in their house, are two very, very different things. Especially when the family have had au pairs constantly since their eldest child (seven years old) was a baby. This put me at a disadvantage because I was constantly being compared to ex au-pairs. It put the parents at a disadvantage because they clearly had no idea how to deal with their own children without help, and were completely unwilling to try. Mostly though, having 12 au-pairs, most of whom couldn't speak Italian (or English) in 7 years put the kids at a huge disadvantage. To the point that the 3 year old was still being spoon fed at the table and was allowed to wear nappies because she was too lazy to go to the toilet.
2. I learned to stand up for myself. I'm the first to admit that I'm a yellow bellied coward, and I hate any kind of confrontation. I cry when I get too angry, which is extremely unhelpful in any argument. But when you're stuck in another country and are having to defend yourself against somebody in their own home, the time comes when you have to man up. No matter what I feel about the situation as a whole- how embarrassed I am that I came home after 11 days when my family and friends gave me money, bought me presents, and generally made a fuss of me leaving for a year, or how gutted I am that it didn't work out- I have to admit that I am proud of myself for how I acted during the confrontation with the family, and how calm I stayed when I was stranded in Milan on the Saturday.
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| Milan. |
3. Saying that though, a braver person than I would have stayed in Italy. Before I left the family, I had decided to go to Rome to work with another. The decision to part ways on the Friday was mutual and civilised, and I believed that it was just a shame that it didn't work out with that family. I know a few people have said- and many others probably think- that I could have still gone to Rome. I could have done, I know that. And I'm kind of gutted that I didn't. However, even though I managed to turn being stranded in Milan into a bit of an adventure, I was still terrified and in mega shock about what had happened. The idea then of trusting another family, and the possibility of having to go through the whole experience again, was not appealing to me, to say the least. As I said, a braver person than I would have done it. I just couldn't. The only thing I wanted right then was to fly home and be surrounded by people who love me. So that's what I did.
4. On a lighter note, I learned that it's easy to make friends if you just paste on a smile and talk to people. I met three really lovely girls from Australia, Phoebe, Amelia and Jess, who were travelling around Europe and were staying in my hostel. They kept me company and kept me sane over the weekend, and despite everything, I had a lot of fun with them. We went into Milan on the Sunday, met up with a lovely girl called Ali from Canada who they'd met on a train, did some sight seeing and went for pizza, wine and ice cream. On Monday they then helped me lug all of my luggage (ha, is that why it's called luggage?!) to Milan central station to catch my bus to the airport. I was extremely blessed to meet them, I don't know what I would have done without them that weekend!
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| Duomo at night. Beautiful! |
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| Sneaky pic of Da Vinci's Last Supper |
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| Best pizza ever. |
5. When God closes a door, he opens a window. Truuuuuuuuueeee dat. My big Italian adventure didn't work out. Yes, it's a shame. A huge shame, actually. The only thing to do now though is to move on to bigger and better things. This experience has given me the kick up the backside I needed to try and sort my post-education life out. It's made me see that I need, and want, to get on with my career.
If I won the lottery, I'd be off to London to look for publishing internships there. Actually, no I wouldn't. I'd be off to Chicago to bribe a publisher there to sponsor me a work visa. But I haven't won the lottery, and for now I'm happy to be back in Manchester surrounded by my family and friends (who have proven to me yet again over the last few weeks just how amazing they all are). So I'm now looking for a part time, evening/weekend job so that if I am lucky enough to get some publishing work experience from houses in Manchester, I can do that during the week!
I'm going to start updating this blog again, keeping anyone who cares up to date about my personal life and my Day Zero challenge (I'm starting a new and improved one in January) as well as any random titbits I fancy writing about. I'm also going to throw myself into my book blogging. You can find my book blog
here.
I'm more than likely talking to myself right now, but if you've made it this far, you are a champ. Thanks for reading, and peace out! Much love x
