(speaks in foreign language)
- Hello!
- How are you?
- Good.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Ah.
- Go ah.
- Ah.
- Hey guys my name is Shayla
and I make these videos every Wednesday.
I've been traveling full-time since 2015.
If this is your first time to the channel,
welcome, hi I'm Shayla.
If you're into traveling
or just getting out and going
and doing things, if you're a doer,
please subscribe to the channel.
If you find this video helpful, please like the video.
A couple weeks ago I made a video about
life before living on a one way,
and I talked about my college and what I was like before,
and how I was kind of a nerd in high school.
One thing that I mentioned is,
that I was an au pair in Spain.
And a lot of you had questions about it,
so I figured why not make a video
that you all are looking for.
So you are already following and have this question
here it is, if you are new to the channel
and you're just like looking for something to do
on a gap year, or looking for a way to travel,
an au pair is a great way to do it.
So I'm going to talk about,
what is an au pair?
Why you would want to do it?
Questions to ask the family that you find,
and my experience in Spain.
What is an au pair?
If you'll already here,
you probably already know the answer to this
but it's basically an international nanny.
Where somebody from another country comes into your home
or you go into someone else's home.
You work with the kids,
maybe you're tutoring them in your language,
maybe you're...
There's like a million things that an au pair could do.
We'll get into that in a second.
Why would someone want to be an au pair?
I was just talking to a friend from high school,
Chelsea, who is also an au pair in Italy,
actually she's super cool too.
Her and her boyfriend are traveling full-time right now,
they are traveling with purpose.
So they're into like volunteering while you're traveling,
follow them, I'll put their link below
it's @SeatoCea on Instagram.
And we were talking about why
we wanted to be au pair's in the first place.
And it was about visas,
she ended up getting a student visa,
because she was taking Italian classes.
And so she got to stay longer.
I just went on the travel visa and
we wanted to go somewhere for an extended period of time.
And we wanted like a super cultural experience.
So we wanted to be in the home,
and when you're an au pair,
typically you get accommodations.
So you stay with the host family
and they make meals for you,
so you really get immersed in the culture so much.
That's how I travel, I like to travel full-time
but I'm not like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
I'm like let's stay here for a couple months,
now let's stay here for a couple months.
So it was super great for me.
And then also the language, I chose Spain
because I wanted to learn Spanish.
I'm talking so fast, sorry guys,
but I'm just excited about it!
I'm super excited!
Like most of us I took Spanish in high school,
but I also worked in a restaurant with Mexican cooks
and it was the greatest thing ever.
Because I got to learn it in class,
where it's like vocabulary and quizzes,
and then speak with the cooks in the restaurant
who are using the conjugations that I just learned in class.
And so I loved Spanish and so I went to Spain,
and if you know anything about Spanish, or Spain Spanish
you know that it's very different.
It's not (speaking foreign language)
it's (speaks in foreign language).
And (speaks foreign language)
is (speaks in foreign language)
and (speaks in foreign language) and just like,
so I can back saying (speaks foreign language)
and the Mexican cooks are like what?
So yeah I don't know?
You get to learn the language it's a culture exchange.
I'm bringing some of my American cultures,
which I don't even really know what that means.
Peanut butter, the kids were completely disgusted
by peanut butter and I was like what?
Peanut butter's the best thing in the whole wide world,
I don't understand.
I had just graduated college,
so there were students that I knew that were studying abroad
and they're like, hey we're in Madrid and we're going to
Paris for the weekend can you come?
And my host dad was like, I'm not going to pay you
while you're gone but you're more than welcome to go
I want you to experience Europe.
Done and done.
So I went to Paris for the weekend,
I went to Italy,
I'll throw on some pictures of that.
So that's why you do it,
you do it so you want a cultural experience,
you want to learn the language,
you want to be there for an extended period of time.
But you have to like kids,
so if you don't like kids this isn't the route to go.
I'll tell you about my experience.
My experience I was in Spain, I was in Cobena,
which is a very small (speaks in foreign language),
outside of Madrid.
There were three kids,
there were two twin girls that already went to a British
school so they spoke pretty good English.
And then there was this little boy
who was a year and a half,
he was the coolest.
(speaks in foreign language)
- (speaks in foreign language)
- Hello.
- How are you?
- Good.
- (speaks in foreign language)
- Ah.
- Go ah.
- Ah.
- Learning another language at a young age
is the coolest thing ever.
Because he's a year and a half
and he's understanding everything that I am saying.
Who is this?
And he goes "mickey".
What color is this, in English,
and he goes (speaks in foreign language)
which means blue in spanish.
He doesn't know the language yet
but he's understanding what I'm asking him.
Which was the, it was just so cool.
So some of the logistical things were,
I paid for my flight out and back,
and it was like 800 bucks round trip.
Then I got to live with them,
I got my own room, I got my own bathroom
and they fed me every meal.
When I was in Spain, this was a time
that I was eating, I was on the plate clean your plate club.
Eat everything on your plate.
Well everything on my plate was delicious
and they would usually serve me more than what I should eat,
so I gained a good 15 pounds while I was there.
Okay I need to tone this back a little bit
because I'm eating a lot.
Regardless they feed you.
I was not there for the money,
I was there, I already had, I had money saved
I was just there literally for the experience.
But they did pay me a hundred euro a week
which then translated to $130.
So I made some money while I was there,
not a crazy amount.
I was able to travel, I was able to go to Paris,
able to go to Italy, and able to go to those places.
But I was also got to go to their birthday parties,
and I got to go to the park with the kids,
and I got to go to things that they had at school,
and I really got to immerse myself in the culture!
(group sings in foreign language)
My host mom was a stay at home mom.
So I didn't have to wake up with the kids,
I would wake up and they'd already be at school.
I had to when they got home speak English to them
from the time they got home from the time they went to bed.
I made some games with them in English,
and then I just tried to really engage them in English.
A girl down the block from me woke up with the kids,
made them breakfast, got them ready for school,
drove them to school, did the laundry during the day,
made food for dinner, like she had to do everything.
Which is fine if that's what the family calls for,
so that leads me into my next thing,
How do you find a family?
When you find a family what are you supposed to ask them?
There's two websites I used GreatAuPair.com
and Chelsea said that she used AuPairWorld.com
which I've heard from a few people.
Both of them are free for au pairs.
So you can hope on and you say I want to go to this country
or this country or this country or this country.
I want to go in November December for like three months.
And you put it out there and (speaks gibberish)
and it gives you all the families that you can choose from.
Then you just start looking at them
and you're like yeah I like this one
you can like put them into your little favorites,
and you can start conversations with them
and see kind of what they're looking for,
what you're looking for.
That's pretty easy finding families.
Then once you've found the families,
how do you know if they're the right fit for you?
I wrote down a couple of things that would be helpful.
Oh the sun's right here now too.
Close this.
I don't really know if that messed it up or not.
But I wrote down a couple of things
that will be helpful for you.
You just want to have candid conversations,
have all the awkward conversations
before the awkward things happen
and you've never talked about it.
Start talking with them and once you decide
you want to really move forward with the family,
I would Skype at least two to three times
just to like see their faces, see the kids,
get a feel for like the parents body language is together,
maybe see your room so that you know what it looks like
and that it exists.
But then also be very candid with them,
maybe have your partner in the video as well
so that they can kind of see your body language.
So make sure that you ask them expectations.
Do they want you to do the laundry and the dishes,
and take the kids to school and do all those things.
That's a perfectly normal job for a nanny.
So those are all like things like they can ask for.
Or do they just want you to tutor?
Like mine did.
How much are you getting paid?
I got paid a hundred euro a week.
Are they paying you more are they paying you less?
What are your days off?
Some people are Monday through Friday,
others are Monday through Saturday.
Are they open to traveling?
Can you say hey I want to go to France for the weekend,
or I want to go to Italy?
Most families are because they know that you're there
to get a cultural experience,
as much as they're having you there
to get a cultural experience in their home.
And then honestly I would talk to them about,
if things don't work out what are we going to do?
If we're going to be doing this for three months
at one month let's kind of talk about it
and see how things are going.
It's not the best conversation to have,
I don't think I even had that conversation with my family
I was just I'm in this, it's going to work out.
Traveling the way that I have,
I've stayed with families in so many different environments,
in so many different places, so I can tell you
that every family is different in how they discipline.
I would ask them that, do you do timeouts?
Do you do spankings?
Do you talk about it?
Do you have them journal, like how do they discipline?
I've seen families discipline differently,
I've seen couples interact differently,
and that's their business.
Like you are in their home and so unless something is
like physical or abusive or something that's not okay,
if they argue a different way than you argue
or something that makes you a little bit uncomfortable,
is it cultural or is it dangerous?
Staying in two different Spain families
I would experience two completely different things.
If I'd stay with two people in the states
I would experience two different things.
There's a million different ways to have a relationship
and have family, and you're going into that.
Go into it with an open mind and just know
that they might not do it the way that you'd do it
and that's okay, unless it's dangerous.
Overall I had an incredible experience,
and after those three months,
I was dreaming in Spanish and thinking in Spanish,
and anyone that spoke Spanish
I just wanted to speak Spanish.
I would highly recommend it, if you have a gap year,
if you are just looking for something to do
for a couple of months and you like kids, do it!
I was just talking to a guy on my Instagram
who is a male looking for an au pair thing
and I was like, I was so interested in him
I was like what you're a male trying to find an au pair job?
Have you found jobs?
Are their people that are looking for males?
And he's like surprisingly
there have been a good amount of people
looking for males to do this.
I think that makes sense.
If you have a little boy maybe you want a boy au pair.
Just try it, just go look, just go figure it out,
just go see what it's like.
But always trust your gut, if something doesn't feel right
make sure you have enough money to get out of there,
to pay for a super expensive taxi out
and to go stay at a hostel.
If you have any more questions about being an au pair
please comment them below.
If you have been an au pair,
please go in the comments and answer your experiences,
because they're going to be way different than mine.
Everyone's is going to be different.
Go ahead and answer as many as you can,
I would love to see your guys' like comments in there.
So thank you all guys for watching,
like I said if it's your first time here,
please subscribe if you found this video helpful
please like the video and go check out my Instagram,
it's living on a one way and you will see Instagram
stories about what we're doing and where we're at.
We go on little hikes in Washington
and I honestly have no idea where we're going to be in 2019,
legitimately have no clue after December.
I'm so excited because tomorrow's my birthday,
November 8th and then Friday Amber gets to Seattle
and then Saturday we're having a meetup
in Seattle at Laguniyas.
Go to my Facebook if your interested in that,
I've got a lot of fun things coming up
and you will see it all next week.
Thank you guys all for watching this week
and I will see you all next week.
Mwah.
Bye.
- [Shayla] Seth?
Why are we at Safeway?
- Cause we going to get some pie.
- [Shayla] (laughing) That's it.
Just for some pie.
- That's it.
- [Shayla] How's the donut?
(beep)
(Shayla laughing)
- [Seth] I'm still eating it.
- [Shayla] Oh my god, you can't even get it (laughing)
- I don't care.
- [Shayla] (laughing) Oh my...