Days since last round up: 0
Estimated fluency: 51% (sadly not been mistaken for a German yet)
Best word learnt this week: Reise nach Jerusalem (literally ‘Trip to Jerusalem’, it’s what the Germans call musical chairs)
Major achievements: changing a nappy, learning how to fix a bike chain
Reading: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Weather: Sunshine beginning to reappear after a full-on thunderstorm
Term finished on July 20th, and throughout April and May I had been looking for a family to live with as an au pair after various summer plans were cancelled because of COVID. I’d found a family and we had agreed a provisional start date of July 1st, but it wasn’t until about 2 weeks before that it became clear that I’d actually be able to travel, once Germany lifted its entry requirements, and the family offered take out travel insurance for me. It wasn’t quite the start to my year abroad that I had pictured, but I was lucky to have been able to get to Germany so early.
Challenge number one was the airport. Loaded with my 32kg case and snazzy new fabric mask, I made my way through an eerily quiet Manchester Airport to a departure lounge which had slightly end-of-the-world vibes. I was early and it slowly started to fill up, but the whole thing was very bizarre and definitely didn’t give that pre-holiday buzz I usually associate with airports. We had to wear face coverings for the duration of the flight, but I was surprised to find that I was sitting right next to someone on one of Lufthansa’s small propeller planes, with just two rows of two seats either side. Uninterrupted by offers of overpriced drinks and questionable plane food, the two hours passed quickly as I started to get into Ian McEwan’s Atonement.
At the other end, in typical German style perhaps, everything went incredibly smoothly, my luggage rolled around just as I approached the baggage carousel, and the family had arrived 5 minutes before I came out to meet them. The family is made up of Mum, Dad, and two girls, one aged three and one aged six. We drove about 20 minutes to their apartment, and shortly after my veganism was promptly broken with tomato pasta for Abendbrot. Coming to Bavaria, I hadn’t expected to be able to stay 100% vegan, and didn’t want to be inconvenient for the family, or limit myself by not being able to try traditional dishes, but I’ve managed to stay vegetarian so far, and vegan cafe and restaurant finds are very much on the to-do list, so watch this space!
The family were really welcoming and soon set me up with the Munich transport app and gave me all the information I needed for heading into the Innenstadt. They live in the Schwabing district, which is just north of the centre, in a modern apartment complex with lots of playgrounds, schools and kindergartens. After helping with the school run the following morning, I was free from 8.30am to go and explore. I was ready for some time alone and the chance to get my bearings a bit, my head was swimming as I tried to assimiliate all the new information and think about setting up the next 6 months of my life here. This disorientation lasted for a few days; it wasn’t until the following Monday that I really started to feel settled.
The girl’s nursery and school are both within 5 minutes of the apartment, and just round the corner is a tram stop which takes you to Münchner Freiheit (probably the heart of the Schwabing district) in about 6 minutes. After that it’s about 10 minutes on the underground to the real tourist centre of the city. I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to see on my first day, so I just started walking from the apartment, got a sense of the immediate area then headed down Leopoldstrasse, coming to Münchner Freiheit after about 40 minutes. Here I was approached by a young guy with a sound buff who asked me what I thought of the German government’s plans to potentially test pets for COVID, explaining that he was from the ZDF (German equivalent of the BBC). I’m very much hoping they edited my slightly dazed and very dodgy German out, and I was thankful when the cameraman put my dazed lingustic incompetence down to jetlag when I explained that I had arrived the day before. I carried on walking until I reached the Siegestor, marking the way into the University district, where I was happy to spot Professor Huber Platz and the Geschwister Scholl Platz, which I recognised from my work on the White Rose Translation Project.
By the time I reached Odeonsplatz, the start of the Altstadt, it was only just after 10 o’clock, and over the course of the day I managed to cover most of the main central attractions as I started to get my bearings of this bit of the city. 32,750 steps later I was back at the apartment in Schwabing, having made my way back through the famous English Gardens. Together with the Mum, we picked the younger girl up from nursery while the older one made her own way home from school. Friday started with classic birthday celebrations for the Dad’s 50th, not without a little stress and a few tantrums as the girls wanted everything to be perfect. After a few goes we got it right, heading to the Sea Life centre in Munich’s Olympiapark following a birthday breakfast, which the girls loved. Back to the apartment for classic German Kaffee and Kuchen, and a trip to the nearby Biergarten in the evening to top off the stereotype. In traditional style, there were no vegan dishes on the menu, so I opted instead for Käsespätzle, a Bavarian/Austrian speciality of pasta dumplings (they are tastier than they sound) with cheese and crispy fried onions. Not the most delicate dish, but comfort food at its carby finest.
The weekend was very relaxed with no firm plans, but a highlight was a bike ride to the nearby park with the girls, where I had to save the younger one from a high slide, which she decided she didn’t want to go down just as she had climbed right to the top. I also got chance to go to my first Probetraining at a local gym, and on Sunday, when all the shops were closed, a walk to the northern end of the English Garden while the girls played at a friend’s, enjoying the sunshine and powering through Atonement.
It can be a strange experience settling in as an au pair, you’re in a completely unfamiliar town with people you have only just met, and at the same time as adapting to life in a new country, you’re dealing with all the challenges of young children. Very quickly you’re living in very close proximity, and especially with the children, switching rapidly between intimacy and unfamiliarity. You’re new and exciting for them, but you’re also not their parents, and alongside this you’re thinking about all the things you have to think about when you’re setting up your life for 6 months. I was experiencing all this over the weekend, but was surprised how quickly I started to feel at home - there were still some challenges and teething problems throughout the week but I’d say I’m past the initial settling-in stage.
For the first week getting into things, I’d allocated a different district of Munich to each day, to be explored once I’d got the children to school and nursery in the morning. I won’t bore you with an exhaustive list of the sights I covered (although my Insta stories have been documenting this pretty comprehensively if you want to check out the ‘München’ highlight), but for an overview, I started with the Altstadt, then looked at the Maxvorstadt/university and museum area, then to the Haidhausen neighbourhood and the Isar bank, the Viktualienmarkt, Isarvorstadt, Glockenbachviertel, and finally Obergiesing.
I was unashamedly touristy at points, notably the Zopfbrezel bought from Rischart on Marienplatz, but I also spent a lot of time wandering around various neighbourhoods getting a feel for the different parts of the city and noting places to come back to. I particularly liked Maximilianstrasse, home to some of the fanciest shops and leading to the Maximilianeum, and generally an especially regal part of the city. I think I’ll also be spending a lot of time in the Maxvorstadt, an area of town not far from Schwabing and near the university, with edgy vibes and lots of cool eateries and shops. I’ve already found some favourite spots which you can read about here.
With the family, mornings were tricky at first, the younger girl deciding she didn’t want to go to kindergarten, or at least that she wanted her mum to take her, and not me. After two particularly stressful mornings where she was late, we tried new tactics and things have gone relatively smoothly since then, but she’s still getting used to having someone new around. She still often tells me to Geh weg, but we’ve also had bonding moments, my favourite being when she finished off the homemade potato wedges I’d cooked for the family and laughed the whole time she was tucking in. Other highlights include the nursery staff accompanying us on the short walk from the nursery to the house because she didn’t want to walk home with me, and the race to see who can get their shoes on first, which is a great tactic for getting her out of the house.
As the week went on, things started to run more smoothly, we had a few school runs with absolutely no tears or tantrums, I managed to sign up to a gym (not easy for 6 months when you don’t have a German bank account), and I’ve started bonding with the parents during after dinner conversations about bits of vocab (the dad is really keen to learn as many English idioms as possible). I’m not feeling fluency coming on just yet, but I’m definitely chuffed with my choice of city, and we still have 5 and a half months to go.