Testimonios Au Pair

If I could have chosen a city to live in as an Au Pair, I had always wished it was Seville. Being a big enough city to have a huge cultural offer, it is well connected and close to the sea. That´s why I was very happy when my local Au Pair agency told me about their partner Au Pair Conecta, through whom I found my host family. I had been wanting for years to go abroad after finishing school to learn Spanish and get to know the Spanish culture.

The possibility to work as Au Pair seemed perfect to me. Not only because you share a daily family life with a Spanish family and therefore are forced to learn the language, but also because you DO actually HAVE a family who you belong to being abroad. For me it was important to have this family and feel safe and protected. Of course it was also important to know that in any case of emergency, there is always an agency backing you up. In this sense I really appreciated the support of Au Pair Conecta. They helped me especially at the beginning to find my way around in the city, to meet other Au Pairs (who I made really good friends with) and to find a good language school. They also guided me regarding my integration into the family and into my job and duties as Au Pair and they gave me a lot of tips for my free-time activities in Seville.

To tick off the boxes on my application form about which household duties I could do was initially easier than actually achieving them. But after a couple of weeks I got used to everything, and actually had fun at cooking and ironing. Apart of my household duties I obciously spent a lot of time with sweet little Ariane, my three-year-old Au Pair child.

I especially enjoyed the first couple of months, actually much more than I would have imagined. There were so many new impressions! The language school CLIC was a lot of fun and I met new friends quickly. I really loved the weekend trips we did. One of them led us to Marroco and it was amazing!

My host family took me along to a lot of family get-togethers, cooking Paella and eperiencing real Andalusian family-life!

I also attended a Flamenco-course, which was a challenging experience but a lot of fun. A friend of my host-family invited me to see a Bullfight and later on to join him to see a soccer match in the great futball stadium of Seville! These are only a few of my highlights, it was all wonderful and I enjoyed my stay as Au Pair to the fullest!

For New Year´s Eve my host family took me to Cordova to spend a week with the grandparents and the rest of the huge typical Andalusian family.

I never got bored in Seville. Whenever I had time off and no special plan, I just put on my running shoes or took my host mother´s bike and went off to explore the city with its millions of tiny little streets and shops. I loved the Orange trees and the colourful fassades of the houses...strolling through Seville´s streets is just wonderful and I never got enough of it!

For me it was definately the right decision to go abroad as Au Pair. Of course there were also ups and downs, which is normal, but in my case the „ups“ were, without any doubt, dominating my stay.

My decision to become an Au Pair in Spain was taken after finishing school in Germany. I wanted to live abroad for some time before starting my university carrer. 
My German Au Pair agency placed me in a family in Marbella at the beginning. Unfortunately I wasn´t very happy there and soon I knew that I wanted to change families. Thank God my Agency back home put me in contact with Au Pair Conecta in Seville. They took care of my case and within a couple of days I was placed in a new family. I could trust them 100%, which I am extremly thankful for, otherwise I would have been very lost in this situation. So finally I moved to Seville and enjoyed all the small little streets of this city, walking through the centre, where I lived. I love the little squares, where people gather, the beautiful parks and above all the climate, the light and the colours of Seville. Andalusias capital is full of life and it´s people are very friendly, chatty and caring. Seville and surroundings in general have so much culture to offer, so whoever likes and is interested in the Spanish culture, will surely love it!

The city has a lot of language schools for Spanish courses. Through Au Pair Conecta I heard about Clic, where I finally inscribed and finished my Spanish courses successfully. They have a huge offer for cultural activities, they organize trips and excursions on the weekends, and have weekly get togethers with all their students. 
Many weekends and also part of the summer I spent at my host families holiday house at the coastline of Cadiz. Quite a lot of the Spanish families in Andalusia have a second residence at the beach. Now this holiday house was always full of different members of my huge Andalusian host family, who I lived with and we had so much fun!!
During my free weekends I did a few trips with friends to get to know more of Spain and it´s neighbour countries. Like this I visited Tarifa, Granada, Madrid, Marbella, Cádiz and Conil de la Frontera. Apart of that I went to Tánger in Maroco and  Lissabon in Portugal.
Nevertheless it is not always easy being an Au Pair. You have to very patient, as I suppose kids who always behave well, don´t exist. But don´t get a fright: all effort is worth it, when you gain a little child´s heart in the end!
I really enjoyed my months in Spain to the maximum and improved my Spanish a lot! I learned so much for life in general, I travelled a lot through my host country and I will miss my Spanish family heaps!!!