The Preamble: I'm leaving... on a jet plane... don't know when I'll be back again...

Friday, August 22nd began my adventure abroad. Having never been to Europe before and yearning to travel after I graduated, I decided to take some time to explore the world. But having limited funds as is normal of a recent college grad, I needed to find a way to travel inexpensively. Considering that I am now a licensed Elementary Education Teacher and obviously enjoy kids, I decided to give Au Pairing a try. Unlucky for me though, I did not have the Reverend Mother to pick out an obscenely wealthy family in Salzburg
for me and send me on my way. Instead, I had the internet at my disposal, and one such website entitled AuPairWorld.net

The site was great- I created a profile for myself and what I hoped to find in a family. My parents, the pragmatists that they are, encouraged me to consider how this year could affect my future as a teacher. So in that regard, I decided that if I could learn a language during this experience, it could seriously benefit my resume and my teaching skills. French and Spanish were the most frequent languages taught in schools, so I decided to go with Spanish as it is more commonly spoken in the United States than French.

So to Spain I would go!! I looked at many different profiles of families that AuPairWorld matched me with (much like an online dating site) and after some time, I realized that I would prefer to be in a city. This narrowed me down to Granada, Madrid, and Barcelona. I found a wonderful family in Madrid with four children who had had Au Pairs before. I instantly liked them, and they invited me to join them at the end of the summer.

Lizzy and I after UVM Graduation, 2014

Now, the idea of Au Pairing abroad had not been a new one for me. My friend Lizzy and I decided that we were interested in doing it while we were on a beach in Fiji on our way home from New Zealand. Lizzy started to have second thoughts and was applying for teaching positions when I found my Spanish family. Seeing that I had begun to make our dream a reality, she realized that this was in fact exactly what she wanted to do as well. I helped her to set up an account on AuPairWorld.net and we found her a family in Madrid as well!

As if the stars could not align more, during a skype conversation with Pilar and Luis (the parents of my Spanish family) we discovered that a classmate of their eldest son was also getting an Au Pair for the year. Upon further inspection, we discovered that this Au Pair was actually Lizzy!!! Both of our families know one another! In fact, Lizzy's family lives in the same building as my children's grandparents!! It was safe to say that fate was
on our sides.

So Long, Farewell!!...I won't be making them do organized dancing and singing...

Though as much luck as we had, I believe we used most of it up at the beginning of the summer. For when we began the Visa process, it proved exceedingly difficult. Without going into details, we were unable to obtain one in the time we had available to us. As Americans, we can stay in the Schengen Area of Europe (which is most of main land Europe and excludes Ireland and the United Kingdom) for three months. After which, we are required to leave the area for three months before we can return. Though there is the possibility that we can stay in Spain for 6 months un-disrupted, it all depends on what the Embassy says, which we will soon find out.

In any case, on Friday, August 22nd, Lizzy and I were leaving on a jet plane, and we did not know when we would be back again. But it was sure to be a grand adventure.

* A special thanks to my parents, Joe and Debbie, as well as my brother and all my friends for being so supportive of this decision.

** Thank you to my regulars at Trader Dukes: the Smiths and the Stebbins. Thank you for listening to my Visa drama and being such great friends. Also, Donna and Garth- Thanks for the title of the blog!

*** Thank you to Marie and Bernie Peppin, without whom I would have been unable to write this blog. Your friendship towards me has been beyond words and I never will be able to thank you enough for your help.