Matthew, our mal au pair in Seville talks about his experience!

We can unfortunately no longer accept further applications at the moment. You can find a list of Au Pair agencies in Spain at www.agenciasaupairaepa.es who will be happy to help you.

Dear all!

I arrived in Seville at the start of July and I was pretty apprehensive about spending my summer working and living with a family that I didn’t know. In reality the family welcomed me withMale summer au pair MAtthew in Seville open arms, and I could see that it was really important to them that I was comfortable and happy.  The family previously had a female Au-pair which hadn’t worked out too well because of the 2 energetic little boys! This made me slightly nervous but the boys and myself plaza encarnación in Sevilleimmediately hit it off and I’m sure this was because we were all guys! For me, this was the main advantage of being a male Au-pair; the boys accepted me quickly and saw me as a friend more easily as they are still at the age where girls seem a bit ‘icky’! Another advantage of being a male au-pair is that I felt I could cope more easily with any ‘crazy’ episodes of the boys, or the never ending football matches 6 times a day!

My host family was pretty relaxed with what I did with the Jose and Diego, and so I think this made it an enjoyable experience. For example my host Mum was happy with me to take the boys on the bus to the park, to go roller blading, to go on the rowing boats in Plaza de Espana or to take them to some of the touristy sites I wanted to see! Another huge advantage was that the sister of my host Mum also had an Au-pair from Germany, looking after her son. Luckily we got on so well and she was my best friend for the next 10 weeks, we spent time together with the kids at the pool and then also a lot of our free time together!  We also spent a week together in Portugal as the whole family took vacations there. The main challenge with the boys was teaching English, as their English level was more basic than I expected, and encouraging them to learn and speak English was difficult as my host Mum didn’t want them to use work sheets or anything that seemed too much like School, and in my opinion, playing games in English has its limits.  The main challenge with the family was solely clarification of working hours and free time, but as I was only in Spain for 10 weeks, I wasn’t too hung up on this issue.

The Maria Luisa Park in SevilleSeville is an amazing, historical city that I would really recommend to anybody thinking of au-pairing there or simply just visiting. The city is beautiful, and typically Spanish with some great Tapas bars and classic Flamenco shows. The city also has some really great nightlife which was a good bonus, during the summer there were open-air clubs in Parque de Maria Luisa which were awesome!  The city has a really well connected bus system, which is pretty cheap at 69 cents per ride with a bus card, which is a necessity as some drivers refuse bank notes all together, and cash is not accepted on the night buses.  The city is well connected by train, although to some locations it was pretty expensive, we travelled to Cadiz, Huelva, Murcia, Marbella and Malaga all by train!

I would really recommend Au-Pairing to anybody that has self confidence and experience with children. I feel it really matured me and proved that I was a responsible and open minded person, which will be great trying to get any job in the future. I improved my conversational Spanish, and one of my only regrets is not spending money on Spanish school. I still have a good relationship with the family and we keep in contact with regular video updates from the ‘crazy boys’! During my time as an Au-pair I made friends for life from all parts of Europe, and was even lucky enough to spend a week in Gran Canaria with some friends I met in Seville! 

Riverside in Seville at dusk