my home

a saturday on the beach...

on saturday i went to coney island (south brooklyn) with sylvia, her hostfather lance and his daughter dana.

the view from the wonderwheel in an amusement park for children

beachparty

heath ledger

i forget to tell you, that <heath ledger> is one of my neigbors - if somebody is interested to meet him... ;)

friday night ;)

friday was great! the family left friday morning for rosh-ha shana (and will be back sunday evening) after my babysitting from 6:00 till 9:00 am i slept very long :) then sylvia invited me for some pasta. i am so glad that i met her! she is a very nice person and we have a lot of fun together :) so at friday night! we met a girl from long island and went to little italy where the festival still went on. after our dinner in a very nice restaurant we went to a popular club. but there was no normal clubparty but a hot contest for a new opening club. secondary the people partied... those of you who want to know more about can contact me ;)

easy week !

this week was very easy. i did some babysitting, went for shopping at fulton mall (i got these nice puma-shoes for $45. footlocker is not very expensive here and i became a v.i.p. member :D loel) and spent my chinatown-monday in chinatown ;)
on tuesday i was at the festival in little italy with sylvia. was a nice evening but they had some kind of horrible food! and some weird games where you could win small fishes and turtles.
yesterday i was so tired that i took a very long nap :D
and today, september 21st, i spent my morning with naomi (that means a lot of potty training) and did the laundry, washed the sheets and pillowcases of the children, made their beds etc... like every boring thursday :P maybe later i will have some time to check some sportsclubs and hopefully i will find a cheaper one! i really need some sports...

a fact about our tv programs

the channels on our tv go to number 1914 !!! unbelievable!

a very nice weekend :)

on friday (09-15-06) it rained all day so that i stood at home the whole morning. after picking up toby and simone i got them ready for the synagogue and walked them to "imagine", naomis daycare. there we met naomi and ilene who introduced me to the caretakers. in the u.s. daycare startes at the age of 3 month. that is very early but a opportunity for the parent who both work all day. and the daycare goes to 6:00 pm or longer. thereafter we met david and had a big family-pizza before we went to the synagogue. on this sabbat they sang all their prays. (there are special themes in the synagogue every friday) i enjoyed it very much! unbelievable that i was not bored at any time ;) but i think the synagogue is not that fancy like our european churches. is was not a church at all! just a smaller room with a little community...

oh what must be mentioned is that naomi uses the toilet regularly since that day and wears underwear instead of her diaper. potty training can be very hard and you need a lot of patience... just think about accidents...

on saturday morning, september 16th, i had my first shopping succes ;)i was at fulton mall, an area of colored people, 6 blocks away. it is a very nice place for cheap clothes-shopping if you are calm enough for the annoying people who want to sell you everything and make you stupid compliments... but if you are in good mood and have the strenght it is a very nice place. so i got 3 t-shirts and a sweater for less than 20 $ :) after my short shopping trip i took care of the children. afterwards i met marcello in downtown manhattan and we took the free ferry to staten island. the skyline at night again - but this time seen from the ferry. it was really nice!

brooklyn view from wall street

brooklyn at sunset

manhattan skyline view from ferry

broolyn bridge view from ferry

we missed the next ferry back to manhattan so we spent an hour in staten island. that was time enough to buy something what was supposed to be baileys but tasted very different... but it was not that bad ;) and the shop assistant did not want to see my ID ;) it is so weird that you are not allowed to drink alcohol in public. the only way to carry it outside is to hide the bottles. so when you buy alcohol you always get a paperbag. and you can not buy alcohol in the supermarket. you need to go to special liqueur-shops...

times square again

on sunday was davids birthday and i spent a lot of time with the family. at first we visited ilene's grandpa at the nursing hospital. the children were a little scared of him because he layed in the bed all the time. that was a sad moment. after our visit we went to an american diner in bethel (connecticut). it was one of the old original fashioned diners. and everything was so greasy!! i had a double cheese tomato burger (i have no idea what was supposed to be cheese) and the only thing i thougt about my first bite was "gosh, how greasy!" but after that we had a very healthy afternoon at the apple-picking-farm. it was so nice to walk along the beautyful landscape with the family and eat so many apples until my stomach hurted... and the weather turned so hot again! unbelivable - i think we had more than 70 degrees. in bethel was also a famous icecream factory where i had a small cup (damn it was so big!) of chocolate icecream. that made me nearly throw up after all that apples. the rest of the day i ate nothing...
in the evening i met marcello and sylvia (a very nice german aupair from brooklyn) and we had some nonalcoholic drinks in manhattan.

gigantic skyscraper and little devils

this week has been very stressful. marcello from germany stays her since sunday (in queens) we first met on monday morning after i brought toby and simone to school. we met on times square and first walked to the central park. but we did not walk in there very deep because it looked so ugly on this part. after that we walked down 5th avenue and broadway.

then i returned to brooklyn for bringing simone to gymnastics. the school is called "nyc-elite". all the little girls in their small leotards looked so nice and it was so cute to watch them doing their practises. then i met marcello again and we walked through chinatown. if you walk on two streets you feel like beeing in italy - that is so funny! thereafter we had pizza in soho (south of houston). i had a salad-pizza. yeah believe me or not, it was like cold pizza with salad on it.. sounds strange but it was really good :) after that i brought simone home from her gymnastic classes (although she knows the way better than me)

on tuesday naomi stayed at home with me all the day and ilene brought toby and simone to school. but unfortunately simone forgot her backpack and i had to walk to school as well :-/
in the evening i met marcello again and showed him brooklyn. seeing the manhattan skyline from the brooklyn-heights promenade at night was so great! after that we walked over the brooklyn bridge. is was such a nice view! i like beeing outside and watching the lights at night. you will not believe how many planes we saw in the sky - there is a lot of traffic still at night...

wednesday was very great because i had a lot of freetime :) all i had to do was getting the children ready for school and do the drop off. but unfortunately there were still some problems. in the morning simone needed a lot of attention besause of her "hurting arm". she felt down the day before and had a very small wound. but it really was not that bad! so she did not take a shower and needed much help to get dressed because she "could not move her arm" children can be devilish if they want to :P on monday toby and simone had a big argument and toby said stuff like "i hate you" and "i wish you were never born" all the time. then i asked him to apologize but he only responded "sorry, but i don't mean it!" and simone cried a lot. that was a very hard situation... especially in the last days toby wanted to go home as fast as possible. and he screamed all the time that we should hurry up and stuff like that. on tuesday he did not want to trust me. he can be very annoying some days. my new strategy is to bring simone with her scooter to school. that is fast enough for toby and we would not be late :)
so on wednesday i met marcello again and we went to the empire state building. the view from the top was so great! but actually i thought nyc is much bigger...

after that we went to the cinema and watched the movie "wicker man". it was a very weird movie and had no sense at all! it is about a village full of women who invite men to take part in their strange rituals. and of couse the men do not know about that... never ever watch that bad movie and try to understand it!! and never eat popcorn in the cinema :D it was salty and with much butter on it. and there was an extra butter dispenser. first i wondered why she offered me napkins for popcorn - but i understood when i tried it...

strange nyc...

last friday i took part in sabbat, a jewish holiday (for those who did not know: the jaroslow family is jewish) they sang a lot an praised everything - in hebrew! it was very funny when the whole family sang something i did not understand. afterwards we had a delicious dinner :)
after that i had a conversation about the crazy people in nyc with david. i remember when i walked down the street with naomi in her stroler and i waited for the traffic light to turn green before crossing the road. (besides: the traffic light for the pedestrians are not really green colored) there was a police-car in front of us on the street and the officer was surprised because i was waiting. then she told me i should cross the street and take no care of the traffic light. i nyc nobody cares about traffic ligths - not even the police... but i had little naomi with me and wanted to teach her about the traffic light! crazy city... even the poeple in the subway are very strange! i thought about writing a book about people in the subway ;) i was never bored in the subway till now - it is so funny to watch those strange guys around you... but my favorite is chinatown. i can not stop smmiling and laughing when i am there!

my first working days

my first working day was on monday september 4th. it was pretty easy because it was labor day and i just had to take care of naomi. the only problem i had was to bring her to bed when she should take her nap. i think she was afraid of me in the first days. but michaela was there and helped me.
in the evening david took the whole family and both au pairs to a steak house. it was so expensive but is was really good. the waiters were always around the table to bring us more water, to fold the napkins, to bring us some bread etc. it was very fancy. so now i can say i have been to an american steak house ;)

the family (david, simone, ilene, toby and naomi) and michaela

on tuesday it was raining all day so i stood inside with the kids or sometimes in front of the house. i like them very much! simone is talking all the time and is very active. she is just like me when i was younger :) toby is very quiet but not always calm. if you want to talk with him you have to ask something about baseball. it was so crazy to see his eyes when we have been to the baseball stadium one day later.
on tuesday evening i went with michaela to a sushi bar. there we met gracy, another earlier aupair of the jaroslaw family. that was really funny. it was a nice evening and the sushi was so good! and it was not that expensive like usual dinner in new york.

on wednesday i got up at 5:30 am. then i woke up the children and we went to their first day of school after their vacation. there was a buffet in the court of the expensive private school.
in the afternoon we brought michaela to the airport. i am sad that she had left because she was so patient while she explained everything to me i have to know (of course in german ;) )
after that i went to the baseball stadium with the family. that day the BROOKLYN CYCLONES (they belong to the NEW YORK METS) had two games because of the rain on the day before. in the baseball season the teams have a game everyday. i enjoyed that evening so much. since michaela is gone the family is more interested in me. i like michaela very much but now we have the time to build up a good relationship. david explained me baseball in a very easy way (like he does to every au apair). i think it is a little similar to "brennball" on german schools. so it is not that difficult like everybody says :) i had so much fun that evening :)

my first weekend

on saturday we first spent some time with the children at the bookstore. you are allowed to sit down there and read the books as long as you want. the children like that and it is a very easy job ;) btw: toby was so nice to bring me "the best " book about baseball. he is very crazy about that kind of sport... david (my hostfather) said i will be a professional in baseball when i return home... after that david took michaela and me to a small supermarket. i can tell you: everything is big! and if you want to buy some cookies it takes you several hours to choose some of hundreds. but then you can get a family pack that lasts two weeks and more...

you wanna know what i ate on sunday? i had some waffle with ham! sounds weird but it was not that bad, because the waffle taste like nothing and the ham had also no flavor. so after my "breakfast" i went to chinatown with michaela. i have never been to china but it felt like being there i guess. they had crazy things to eat there but you can get food less expensive in chinatown. and all the weird people on the streets. everybody wants to sell some stuff and they are whispering (or screaming) "gabanna, prada, gucci" or "you need a watch? watch! watch! watch!" that was really crazy!

"knorr"

mc donalds...

after that we had been on a baseball game on coney island. it was my first baseball game ever. (btw: i have never been to a soccer game...) so the game was okay but sometimes very boring. and i understood the most important things :)

brooklyn cyclones stadium

michaela & me

"hotdog-run"

changes!

the first time they talked a lot with michaela. that has to do with the fact that they know each other very good and she left on wednesday. on the other side i am not alwazs able to say what i want. to express my feelings is sometimes impossible by now. that made me a little bit sad because i am a person who is talking all the time (many of you will know ;) ) and normally my english is much better... but the last days have been so overwhelming that i was confused sometimes. but the family will know that it is not that easy to change your life completely. but that is what i wanted all the time and it will surely take not that long to get used to my new life!

time to tell you about my last days! after class on thursday the last aupair (michaela) brought me to my new home. the house is very big! it has got four floors and is so neat and clean. my room is upstairs at the top of the house. i share the floor with the kids (toby 9, simone 7 and naomi 2). somedays the kids are screaming early in the morning and sometimes at night...

on friday michaela first had shown me the school, naomis daycare, the hebrew school etc. after that we walked through brooklyn heights which is the richer part of brooklyn. but the houses did not look that expensive. it is so dirty in the streets.. that is weird! but from there we had such a nice view to the skyline of manhattan. i loved it!

then we walked over the brooklyn bridge an took the free ferry to staten island which passes the statue of liberty very close. it is funny to stay in ny for five days without having seen the statue of liberty the days before...

after that we walked through ground zero. while everything was so big, amazing and crazy we felt so sad at this place. there was silence while the people looked at the big pictures from september 11. it was like the fast nyc life took a break there. if you had been there it means a bigger dimension to you than seen on tv!

after our round trip we were at the musical "phantom of the opera". it was so good and i really enjoyed it! when we returned home the family had alredy come home from their vacation and was asleep. so i first met them saturday morning.