Days since last round up: 14
Best bit of vocab: ‘schnappen’ (to snatch, pick up - also if you need to grab a child before they do something you don’t want them to do or in order to get them to do something you want them to do)
Linguistic challenges: being authoritative with three tetchy young children when alone with them in the apartment and trying to explain to them in German why they are not allowed more sweets and why they can’t stand on the chairs
Linguistic successes: explaining to an Austrian border guard why I didn’t have my passport (see Salzburg post for more info)
Major achievements: assisting with moving a potted plant (weighing upwards of 50kg) from a neighbour’s apartment on the second floor to our fourth floor balcony
Parcels delivered directly to the door: 0/2
Parcels misdirected but retrieved: 2/2
Reading: Liebesfluchten by Bernhard Schlink
Weather: Heatwave
The last two weeks haven’t been exceptionally busy, but last weekend was full enough to delay the regular blog post, and since then I’ve been caught up in getting into the new September routine, cracking on with some reading and other projects for while I’m here.
Last week was the first real back-to-school week, with the older girl now going into Year 2 after having been in daycare over the holidays. This means mornings have been earlier than the previous few weeks, with her setting off from the house at 7.30am, usually around the time the dad is going into work, while the younger one wakes up shortly after and has a bit more time to come round and get ready before I take her to nursery.
Another new development was that the dad suggested we keep a record of my hours as I go during the week, so that everyone is clearer on how much is expected. The standard au pair contract is 30 hours/week, most of which tends to be done on weekdays, but as the girls come home quite late I generally have to make up some time on the weekends as well, but until now it’s not been entirely clear how much. Recording hours made us all realise quite quickly that it’s difficult to calculate exactly what ‘counts’, for example a dinner together, or an hour when the children are watching TV and don’t especially need me, but could call at any time. So the new system has lead to a slightly different way of doing things, leaving me a bit more freedom later on in the evenings. All of this week it’s worked so that I take the kids to the park from around 6pm-8pm, until it goes dark, and after a bit of time helping to get ready for bed I’ll then be free to get my own dinner and do my own thing. It’s been nice to have a bit more freedom and also quite a predictable routine, but it does mean that I’ve been spending less time with the parents and I do feel like my role has become a bit less part-of-the-family and more live-in-babysitter, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I’m just still getting my head around the new dynamic. A few evenings last week, before we’d got properly into the routine, and to make up for a morning looking after Helena when daycare was closed before the first day of school, I unexpectedly got two evenings free from around 6pm, the first time I’ve been able to explore Munich on a weekday evening!
The Lost Weekend café and workspace is still a favourite, and is proving a great location to get into primary and secondary reading for my extended essay, but I also had time to try some places I’d spotted back in July in the Westend side of town. Last week’s focus was German authors of Turkish heritage (Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn by Emine S. Özdamar, and Ellbogen by Fatma Aydemir) before moving onto some critical essays and theory around race, belonging and identity in contemporary Germany. It’s all very interesting and incredibly relevant stuff, both from a literary and a political perspective, and I’m really looking forward to writing about it.
Sadly on a sunny Wednesday after a mini-Oxford lunch meet up in Maxvorstadt, I had to say goodbye to my lovely college brother, Tom, who left last Sunday to start the next part of his year abroad in Italy. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here long enough that people are already starting to leave!
It took a few days to get into the morning routine; some days last week were, if not exactly stressful, a little hasty, and the older one’s mood isn’t always bright and sunny before she leaves, which usually results in quite a lot of sass towards me, but the younger one, who is more of my main focus for looking after, seems to have adapted really well to the routine and now responds to the various tricks I’ve learnt to make her think that what I need her to do is super super fun. I’ve really been enjoying the afternoons and evenings, taking the girls to the park is lovely because they’re obviously having so much fun and they can keep at it for hours. On and off checking where the children are or being served ‘food’ from the younger one’s sand-restaurant, I can also have a nice chat with the mum of the older girl’s friend, who is really lovely and a massive help with the kids.
Last weekend featured the first big day trip, to Salzburg, which you can read more about *here*. After Salzburg, Sunday was a bit of a recovery day, with a lie in before catching up on some time looking after the kids, ending a little stressfully when the older girl suddenly decided she wanted to play alone with the younger one, and after much successful anticipation and chasing on my part, eventually managed to outsmart me and cause a few minutes of panic when I couldn’t find them. She didn’t get far, appearing in the playground just outside the apartment, but it was definitely one of my more challenging moments.
This week has featured some brilliant weather and some lovely lunches (see upcoming favourite finds for more), alongside all the usual ups and downs of trying to navigate the dynamic with the family and get into a new routine. It also featured some lost slippers at the younger one’s nursery, which proved more of a source of stress than you might imagine, because the mum has a bit of a bugbear about things going missing, which does mean I’m terrified of leaving anything behind. Alongside this, ups and downs of how long the younger one wants to eat her cereal in the morning (three-year-olds just won’t be hurried), and a Zoom training session for a volunteering project with a charity called Arrival Aid, who support asylum seekers with preparation for their hearings.
Looking back it was more of a jam-packed week than I’d anticipated, which naturally brings some challenges, and some of the unexpected stress came to a head this weekend, which was also quite busy with the girls because of the time I’d had off in the week for training. But a dinner date on Saturday featuring homemade pesto at Anna’s apartment was the perfect way to end a long day with the kids, and overall the weekend ended on a nice note, taking the girls to the playpark on Sunday evening with the usual entourage of the older girl’s friends and parents.
A visit to the Dachau memorial site on Sunday also put things in perspective a little. The town is located a 20 minute train ride from Munich, and the site of the former concentration camp - the first one in Germany, serving as both a model and a forerunner for all to follow - is about 1.5 miles to the east. Walking the same way as thousands of prisoners on a bright but sleepy Sunday morning was a little bizarre, and even once you get to the memorial site and are standing in the roll call grounds, looking at the huts in which prisoners were kept and the crematorium where their bodies were burnt, the horror of what happened still doesn’t feel quite real. Our guided tour was very extensive, lasting longer than the suggested 1.5-2 hours because of lots of questions from the group, giving us even more information and making for an interactive, engaging experience, as well as some great German practice. We didn’t quite have time for the museum, so a visit in winter might be on the cards, but for now I don’t feel we missed out on getting a full, if not exactly ‘enjoyable’, experience of the place. The Nazi history continues next weekend, so stay tuned!