Au Pairing, Germany
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Paris With Nathalie is Officially Booked

Friday: 11.26pm

Contrary to popular opinion, I had a delightful evening, yet uneventful, evening working on my coursework. I’ll have you now that I’m on my 2nd glass of red vino though.  I know I’ve only been here for 22 days now but I’m starting to feel as if my time here is dwindling! I’m attributing this to the pressure I’m self inflicting upon myself to finish my online courses.  The best cast scenario would entail completing three courses. Likely scenario: completing two.  In the event that I suddenly acquire friends, well perhaps reduce it to one. Aber nein! If I intend on graduating next May then I need to buckle down and get these credits.  In addition, my summer plans are coming together quite dashingly!

Today I booked my flight to Paris. I’ll be meeting up with my friend Nathalie (tall, dark and gorgeous) from Switzerland. We met when I was au paring there and became fast friends. Our chance meeting just proves how small this world is! I had been introduced to a German girl through my SwissHostFamily, living in the same village as me (we’re talking February/March 2007). She invited me to a dinner party that she was hosting and thought I would be interested, particularly given that two Canadians would be in attendance.  So I arrived at this engagement and was promptly introduced to Nathalie. It went a bit like this:

Me: “So I hear you’re also a Canadian!”

Nathalie: “Yah”

Me: “So…where abouts are you from?”

N: “Ah, it’s so small, you’ll never have heard of it.”

Me: “Try me. What province?”

N: “BC…really, it’s such a small place.”

Me: “Tell me.”

N: “Burns Lake.”

Me: “STFU! My sister lives there! She’s a teacher at LDSS!”

And the rest was history! She was born and raised in Burns Lake, BC and had moved to Switzerland with her mom and siblings in 2005. For those of you who don’t know, Burns Lake is a small Northern BC community of about 5,000, including the surrounding areas.  A couple months later Nathalie pulled out a year book she had from her high school…and who was on the staff page? My sister! Small, small world! Story gets even more whack – Nathalie grew up next to Kaleigh! (Milinazzo, your smart, beautiful NUGSS president!) Small, small world I tell ya!

Anyways, so Nathalie and I are meeting up in Paris from June 11 -16. At the moment we’re exploring accommodation options and really favor renting an apartment.  They’re priced comparably with cheap hotels and hostels. I stumbled upon a gem -which hopefully will work out for us. [http://www.suitablecitysapartment.com/id13.html] (It’s the first one, the studio apartment). My mother will be so impressed with my Canadian skepticism. Everything about it looks phenomenal: location, updated features, price, supplemental features, etc. The only odd thing is, is in order to reserve it, you must send them a bank or money order. Hmmm, smells suspicious. And then I started to dig around…they have a few apartment rentals in New York.  According to this website, one can rent a beautiful 2-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan for an entire week at the economical price of $450?? Either this is a fraud and Nathalie and I are going to be out 80 euros for our reservation fee,  it’s a cover up operation for a drug cartel,  or I’ve discovered the best accommodation a city can offer.  Here’s for hoping it’s either of the latter two!

Me: “Hey so I found this awesome apartment…you wanna call the company tomorrow? See if it’s legit?”

Nathalie: “Hunh? Oh, it looks amazing!!! Why don’t we just book it now?”

Me: “Uhhh, I dunno. Just call them? In fact…do you wanna put it on your credit card? Just ask lots of questions…feel out if it seems legit.”

Nathalie: “Okay?”

Me: “I dunno…”

Anyway, I really hope this works out. I plan on consuming copious amounts of wine, cheese, baguettes and possibly even taking up a cigarette habit. “When in Rome” right??? If you reference my Bucket List you may also notice that one of my line items is to make a purchase at the Chanel store. So it seems there is some incentive to make a purchase…on Mom’s Visa of course! We’ll see. All of these designer stores on Place Vendôme have intimidating security guards at the doors (think Men in Black) so I’ll have to put together some sort of outfit that will permit me to enter into the Promise Land.

Apart from this trip, Tyler arrives in Europe on June 1st, Sister will most likely be visiting at some point during the summer and it sounds as if the HostFamily will be taking holidays in early August. Hostfamily intends on spending their holidays in Denmark (my Homeland!!). Given that my contract ends on August 23rd, I expect to be tagging along. Exciting! SO, between Paris, visitors, Denmark, online courses, German language courses, caring for Matti and presumably the social life I’ll soon be procuring, well, one can see why I’m starting to feel the days elapsing so quickly!

So this weekend brings the return of HostDad and on Sunday I’ll be traveling to Hanover to meet up with an Australian au pair I’ve “met” through Facebook.  Should be good to get out of Celle and around some people who i) Are taller than 1 meter and 2) Under 38! Heh.

Well, I’ve finished my last glass of wine so I’m out…

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