Route J-1

By Garazi Alkorta, J-1-Au Pair from Spain
A version of this story was originally published on Expert Au Pair

Stunning views of the city from the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center)

When I decided to start this journey called the au-pair experience, being more than 5,000 miles away from home for a year, on my own, living and sharing experiences with strangers sounded like a scary idea. Let’s jump into the car and travel through this – not always so easy – road that turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life.

Once I packed for the journey I realized there was a hidden feeling that was coming with me straight to the other side of the world: a bitter-sweet feeling of sadness because of what I was leaving behind – mixed with excitement and eagerness to finally know what was waiting for me. The car started running, and here I am.

Getting ready for Halloween

On my first stop, I met up with people who have been my travel-buddies: my host-family and friends. My host parents are a caring couple that tries to share many important values in life with their kids: respect, love, honesty, responsibility, hard-work and tolerance, among others. Taking care of kids is not always an easy job, but they somehow end up cheering you up even on your worst days. You’ll sing at the top of your lungs with them while you’re driving them to judo, you’ll be a master at UNO cards, you’ll find out that you aren’t that bad playing basketball and you’ll even learn how to flip-jump from the trampoline at the pool. You’ll definitely realize that you are learning from them as much as they are learning from you. You’ll come back home as a culturally richer person. Beyond sharing your routine with a local family, you’ll probably have lunch with your German neighbor, you’ll go out with your Spanish amigos at night and you’ll meet up with people from Mexico, Taiwan, Australia or Zambia.

Amazing Grand Canyon, the ending of our summer road-trip

Every suitcase is made for a reason: traveling, my second stop on the journey. This has been the perfect chance to discover those cities that I’ve always heard about, but I’ve never had the chance of visiting. Yes, New York City is an awesome jungle where everything is possible, but noisy, crazy and dirty too. The slopes in San Francisco will make you sweat like a pig. Canada is really cold, but beautiful, in winter. Road-trips through California aren’t like in movies: you’ll have smaller budgets, a couple of rainy days and not-so-amazing motels. But hey, heads up, you’ll deal with everything!

I’ve been here for a while now, and I sometimes miss home and everything that I left there. I’ve found potholes on the road; but those potholes drove me into my last (but not least) stop: growth. I’ve learned many things about myself. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve had a lot of doubts, but there’s one thing that I’m 100% sure about: I won’t regret anything that I’ve experienced, and everyone that I’ve met, during my au-pair-life. It will have a special place in my heart.

Categories: Program Spotlight