Jan 21, 20215 min read

Nineteenth week

Halllooo!!

This week was like another normal week. Leah her studio is almost done! It looks amazing!! I’m so happy for her. I can't wait to see how it is when it is finished and how it will go when she is opening! I spoke to a lot of my friends this week and did a lot of fun things so for this weeks topic I’m going to talk about friends, how do you make friends, how do you find them?

Of course I did a lot of fun things with the kids too, here you have some pictures to have a little look in what we did haha.

When I arrived here I was scared that I couldn't find any friends, because of covid. But I still found so many amazing girls. :) The day I arrived my lcc introduced me and some girls from my group texted me to say welcome and introduce themselves to me. They were all so sweet and I was so happy that they sent me a message. After I got settled and I had time to hang out I did. I went to the first meeting to meet all the girls from my group and also to meet the girls I texted with. It was nice to knew people already. And from that moment I also started to hang out with them alone or with a smaller group.

So one of the things to find new people is through your lcc group, but you can also use apps to find people. I use Bumble, that's an app to find friends. I was really interested in making American friends too, so this app really helped me with that. I found a few girls I’m really excited for to finally meet them! I haven't met anyone on the app yet, but we are planning to meet soon!

Another thing to find new friends, maybe the most populair way, is through Facebook and Whatsapp groups. Facebook is filled with groups with au pairs in every state or area. Also there are many groups for au pairs from your home country. I posted something on the Facebook group in my area and I got so many reactions! It was crazy! I didn't even responded on everyone yet. I met some girls in person that I met on Facebook. Also there are so many different au pair group apps, just send a text in the group and there is always someone who will respond or lives near by. I met Valerie through a Whatsapp group with all Dutch au pairs. Groups on Facebook and whatsapp will never end. There are so many groups or someone will create a new group.

In the beginning I was so busy with finding new people, but then I wasn't really looking for a while, but now I want to meet new people again! So I did! I joined a new group and find people from all over America, that's cool too for when we can travel again. Then you have a friend to visit. :)

To meet new people now is kinda hard, because sometimes you can't meet somebody because of covid and the restrictions. I hope it will be better soon so I can meet more people!!

A tip from me what they told me when I arrived here is, when you are in a group app just send some people a private text. Not everyone is reacting on a group app all the time and if you send them a text they have to haha. So just pick some girls/boys that you want to send a text. One other thing I noticed since I’m an au pair is that every au pair wants to meet new people and make new friends! They all want the same thing as you. Normally I would think that it is weird to ask/say 'do you want to become friends', but in the au pair world it is kinda normal haha.

My friends

This week we kinda made a weekly meeting thing for our friend group haha. Every week we are coming all together to hangout outside and talk. I really love this idea, because we finally found a way to see each other, while being safe for covid. The first time we all came to my place, we have a porch with a heater. We sat outside with blankets and had some snacks. We all wore masks. This week we went to Sharon's place. She also has a porch with a fire pit and a heater. So we made s'mores and just chilled. :)

This weekend was fun! I spent the hole weekend with Sharon. Saturday we went for a hike with Amanda. After the hike we went to grab something to eat and drove to a spot with a picnic table to eat our lunch there. After that we drove to the mall, because it was to cold outside and we wanted to do something that wasn't outside haha so the only options was to go to the mall. It was very quiet in the mall and many stores were closed. We went to a few stores and looked for a present for Simone, who is leaving in two weeks.

Sunday we had a really busy day, but a really fun day!! We started the day with a hike at the Centennial Park in Ellicott City, it was a really beautiful spot. It has a big lake and we walked all the way around it. After. that we drove to the Historic part of Ellicott City. That was also so pretty!! It is an old town with some beautiful paintings on the wall and a lot of thrift-shops. we walked around here, went to a train museum and just enjoyed the area.

At 1.30 pm we drove to Columbia where we had a ice skate meeting with the LCC group! So many people showed up and it was so much fun!! It was hard to skate, because the skates weren't sharp enough and the ice was very slippery. It was a little bit of a challenge haha. After ice skating we went to the Brookeville beer farm. It was so much fun! We met with a group there and sat outside, ordered pizza and had a little goodbye party for Simone already. We are going to see her again before she is leaving but haha yeah. It was cold... so we went to Starbucks to get something warm to drink and drove to the Olney sportpark and hang out there.