Let me talk about my kids...

Hey!

Today is Wednesday and it finally started to rain! After a long hot summer this is what the earth needs. There is a lake here and its half empty and the gras started to grow because there were maybe 3 days that rained this summer...so yea..only a bit scary fact is that a huricane is coming our way...but it shouldnt be soo good.

Ok...today I want to talk about my kiddos....I am taking care of 2. Elina who is 4 years old and Jayden who is 2 years old. They are asian and very very cute. My hostmom is from Korea and my hostdad is from Taiwan wich makes them cute mixture :) haha...

They are very very good kids who listen to me 88% of the time :) they are not very spiled wich is very very good !!! In 19 monce since I came I really love them as they would be my kiddos. They can be hard sometimes but they are kids...who is not crying sometimes for nothing :)

Now they both started school from 8.30 to 12.30 wich is awesome because I have way more free time. I love it :) They are visiting Montesori Christian preeschool and its very cute and very expencive. Well at least for me...in Slovenia you don't need to pay so much for preeschool. They are paying 6.000$ a year for 1 person. its crazy right?

Anyway...Now I am sitting in a waiting room of Honda service center because the car did not start yesterday...well crazy...they said baery was bad and they are gonna change it.

Oh and I think I am getting stressed with everything - visa - school - weather - people leaving me...

Oh I could talk about people leaving...literally everybody is leaving...

Today Martina is leaving (Italian aupair) and It makes me so so sad I cant believe it. It is devestating. Anyway... than Melisa left, Tjasa is moving further away, Ajda is 2 hours away...thank God Mafer is still here ! She better stays !

This is the hardest thing ever in living abroad.. people leaving and moving away. But I will talk about that in my next post.

have fun guuuuuuys... coments are welcome :)

your crazy traveler Sabrina :)

What is different?

Hey guys!

So seeee as I promissed I am back! Today I will try to write some differences between Slovenia and USA.
There is many but let me just tell you about some :

1. Right turn on red traffic light.

Yes you heard right. Here in US on most of the traffic lights you can turn right even if the traffic light is red. You have exeptions on big or dangerous intersections of course but otherwise I think this is a pretty good thing. You still need to stop and yield to all the cars that are comming from your left but once they are gone you can go. I am happy oh so happy about that rule :) I think all of you know how painful it is to wait if there is no cars :)

2. Football is NOT soccer !

Well this is still hard for me sometimes even tho I am here for a year and half already. When somebody asks me: do you like football? I need a second to realize they are talking about American football and not Soccer. I guess it is hard to get used to it because we call soccer football in Slovenia...Oh well :) 

3. Free refills 

Oh God this is killing me! Everywhere you go (well almost everywhere) where you can but food and get drinks you get a free Refill wich is very dangerous. Well at least for me. If I know I can take more drinks for free of course I will drink more of crapy soda :) haha... but sometimes I think it is so silly...because they ask you if you want small, medium or large drink... but if you have free refills...doesn't really matter if it's big or small because you just refill it...hahahah :) I am not sure if they will ever do that in Slovenia. I guess we are just to greedy.

4. Vacations

America is the country with the least paid vacation in the world. Yes they are free some days like labor day, christmas and 1st of January...but that is about it. Do you know what is the week between christmas and New Years called here? NOTHING! because they need to work. :) haha... In Slovenia most of the companies close their doors before christmas and open them again in January...well...not here..

5. Mail

Nobody here really uses mail but you get tons of mail in the mailbox every day ! Yep it is like that. If you go to the store and buy something they will send you coupons and sales for every thing they have. And nope...you can't really get rid of it. It is very annoying.

6. Tips !!!

Tips are very important here in US and it can get confusing. For example: if you are in slovenia and you go eat out and you want to buy a meal that costs 8 dollars and you have 10 dollars you have enough money for the meal (and you probably can buy a drink too), but here in USA it's not like that. If the meal is 8 dollars your 10 dollars wont be enough. Because after that 8 dollars comes the tax wich is about 8% and in the end you need to tip at least 15% of the bill so yea...if you have 10 bucks...you will be hungry.
Tipping is far the most annoying thing ever here ! and if you don't tip good...you are not really welcome to that restaurant anymore. I guess that is why we go to Taco bell or Burger king or Chipotle more often...no tip :)))

7.  Drink options

There is so many different options of drinks in America!!! Cola, Diet Cola, Chery Cola, Vanila cola, Lemon Cola, Cinamon cola, Diet chery vanila Cola... Diet pepsi, Chery pepsi, Strawberry pepsi, and I can go on and on and on also with waters, sprite and million of different drinks they have. In slovenia we have Cola and Diet cola. That is about it. Why do they do so many tastes? It is just silly.

8.  The weather channel

haha there is a channel on TV that has weathr on all the time. Weather at 8 am, at 5 pm and at 12 am. It is just silly.

9. Cars beep when you look them

How annoying is this? Every time you look the car it makes the silly sound. And yea every brand of car has different sound. Funny story...when I went home in February and took the car to go to store I locked it and did not hear anything (like every normal car in europe) and was standing there in front of it pressing the lock button talking to myself in english : why dont you lock? I even unlocked it and went to open and close all the doors again... oh well :) silly me haha

10. Language and traveling

When you travel in Europa you should know a bit of the language to where you go or at least speak english. In America. Wherever in USA you go they speak english. They have the same stores...it's not really so different from each other. In Europe we have 24 different languages and here...they just speak english. In Europe every country is different...here everything is pretty much the same :)

Well I think that is it for now and I promisse I will be back soon !

If you find any other interesting difference let me know in the comment !

Sabrina

Hello

Hey everybody !

Let me introduce myself. My name is Sabrina and I am from Slovenia. Slovenia is a little country next to Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Since February 2014 I am here in USA as an Au Pair. I need to say at first I was very homesick but after few months West Orange (NJ) became my home. I can not really imagine going back home and live ''normal'' life again. Anyway...what is normal?

In a year and half I did see a lot of things and got to know many people.

I visited New York, Connecticut, Atlantic City, Philladelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Hampshire, Vermont and Dominican Republic. I also went home this February to surprise my parents on their birthdays and to get new Visa.

I may got home again in December or January to get my Student Visa. Yes my hostfamily decidet to sponsor me for studying so I am gonna try to get the visa and stay here for few more years. Everything here is just so cool and my best friend is here...what else do i want? And as we say - If you don't try you won't ever know.

Many people are asking me if I am missing Slovenia or at least my family and friends. The answer is YES !! Of course I miss my family and friends !! I thing everybody does. There are days that my life seems horrible and I feel miserable but again, I can not imagine going back home and live my life anymore.

My last trip was actually a camping trip to Vermont with my best friend Ajda. She is also Slovenian and we had so so much fun! We left Saturday morning from Connecticut where she lives and studies. Driving around 4 hours we came to Bristol in Vermont and put out our tent. Let me say that was the frist camping trip for me so I was very excited at the begining. After we did it we went to find a river to put our hot legs in because it was very hot and humid. We found awesome Bristol falls and tried not to swim at first but at the end we kind of both fell in :) We had lots of fun and we were laughing a lot. After we went and turned on a fire for dinner. We were grilling some corn, sausages, mushrums and zuchinis. It was so tasty. When the time came we went to bed and I was so scared I was just shaking and somewhere in the back (far far away) I heard the Wolwes hauling. It was so scary so I woke up Ajda and asked her if she can go with me to the car wich was literally 3 meters away but I was just too scared ! hahah yes I am silly but oh well... :) Next day we put tent away and start driving - meaning we stopped everywhere where was something interesting. We were driving trough some parks and had a very nice view of hills wich you don't see in New Jersey. We stopped at waterfalls. At the end we find a park called The Polar Bear Caves wich is a cave park and you need to climb trough tiny caves and it was so funny for me because I am not the skinniest and it was a challenge :)

Anyway in the end we had a lot of fun time.

I am gonna try to write this blog more often - at least once a week.

If you guys have any question about how to become an au pair or how to apply in Slovenia or in general let me know. I would love to help you !

This is where I live :) all the houses look the same like in the movies :) 

 Going to Ed Sheeran concert with my Italin friend Martina was very amazing. It was my first live concert and I loved it. It was in Barklay Center in Brooklyn, New York.

 Our tent in Vermont. Everybody got their own little space where you could camp and not be botthered by other campers. It was very nice, hidden and cute. Maple Hill Camping near Bristol Vermont.

 I visited Grand Canyon in July when my mom was visiting. On the right on the picture is my friend Lindsey who lives in Flagstaff  Arizona. I met her in Austria when I was Au Pair (nanny) there. She is the sweetest lady ever. Love her very very much !

 Philadelphia in winter ! It was actually March but we still had a lot of snow ! This picture is taken on the top of Rocky stairs.

 I forgot to mention it abowe but we also went to visit Canada. This is in Toronto where we stayed for 3 days. It is amazing ! And one thing that I loved is that you could buy Kinder Egg without any problem. In USA they are banned. No idea why but I just feel this is stupid. I went with Mafer from Mexico and Julian from Germany.

 This is me and Melisa in Atlantic City. Yes winters here are long but that doesn't stop us from exploring around. Melisa is from Germany and she was my closest friend here but now she is gone...back to Germany :(

 Me and Ajda in Washington D.C. . I was in Washington D.C. twice and I loved it both times ! We also went to see the gardens from White house. Pretty cool.

 Niagara Falls with Mafer and Julian. WE went here when we were in Toronto. It was about one hour driving. In the back is Canadian part of waterfalls.

 When we were in Arizona with my mom we also went to California for few hours. Hollywood sighn...was just my dream to see it !

 With Ajda camping and playing Indians and Cowboys hahaha :)

 My mom and me also wisited the Hoover Dam. You can see it in every movie that is why it was very exciting to see it.

 And of course we did not forget Las Vegas.

 I was in Chicago twice. This is my second time when I visited Melisa. Love that windy city.

 Antelope canyon in Arizona. If you are ever going to Grand Canyon please don't forget to get here too !

 View from WTC center in New York. The tower that is in New York instead of the twins.

 Times Square

 Santa Monica - California

 New York from New Jersey. Next to Hudson River.

 On the Yankee baseball game with Jordan from France and Camila from Colombia. It was my first game and it is pretty interesting !

 About 2 weeks ago my host family went to London and I went with them so I meet my 2 friends there. They are both from Slovenia too. On the left is Sabina and on the right Jasmina. This is in my hotel room in The Ritz hotel London!

 Sometimes I am just so amazed how I can live so close to New York City and Manhattan. I am really lucky.

 Well...because we are Slovenian girls living in USA we decidet to get maching tattoos with Ajda. New York skyline with coordinates that represent Slovenia.

 Bristol Falls in Vermont. Water was freezing but it was so clean and awesome.

 Grilling some corn in Vermont.

 Bristol Falls

 Polar Caves in New Hampshire. Lemon squeze :)

 Somewhere in the middle of Vermont. Looks like Slovenia right?

 Kissing bridge in Polar caves.

Memorial of 9\11. Very emotional to see this lights shining once a year. Look from Jersey City.

I tried to show you a bit of my life so far and more is coming next weeks.

Love you

Sabrina