Going home to winter wonderland Netherlands

Saturday December 31th was a special and sad day for me. On this day, I had to say good-bye to my host family. In the morning, I got a really sweet card from my host kids and this made me sad! Luckily, Aidan was with me to go trough the tough day. At the end of the day together with Aidan, the new Au Pair and my host family we went for a Mexican dinner at a nice place close to my house in Laguna Beach. After this, I hugged my family for the last time. From that day until January the 23th, I lived in Aidan's house in Los Angeles. It was amazing spending time with my boyfriend and seeing him every day. I have to say that the first days I was in LA, I really missed my host family. For the first time in almost two years I had several days off and this made me think more about my amazing Au Pair experience and my previous host families. Again, it was great to have Aidan around to cheer me up. After a day or three, I felt emotionally better and started exploring more of LA. During the week, I went to a lot of cool museums, went to dinners with Aidan, cleaned his house, watched Game Of Thrones (Aidan made me watch it and now I am addicted to it ;)) and explored the LA County. It was really nice to have Aidan's car, because without a car it is really hard to go places in LA! The nicest things I have done in LA are visiting the Broad Museum (this museum has amazing Contemporary Art like Andy Warhol's Pop Art), driving around in Beverly Hills and Bel Air (saw lots of villas!) and visiting the Getty Villa (a beautiful museum in Malibu designed as a Roman villa with lots of Roman and Greek Art). Below this story, I have a list of things to do/see in LA. 

Unfortunately, time always flies when you are having fun. So also my month off in LA went really fast. Luckily, the last weekend was very special for me and Aidan. We went to San Diego for the weekend and after that we visited my host family for one last time and I said bye to one of my best friends. If you are ever in California, you should go to San Diego. The city has so much to offer! Downtown is full of cool bars, restaurants and clubs; Old Town is a really cute area where the Mexican culture strongly is mixed into the American culture; Pacific Beach has a long shoreline with a nice beach and lots of bars and clubs; and La Jolla (along the beach North of San Diego) has amazing cliffs and beautiful relaxing beaches. Of course this are not the only things San Diego has to offer! 

After visiting San Diego, Aidan and I went to my host family in Laguna Beach. It was truly happy to see my host kids and host parents again. They really missed me and I missed them too of course! Rylan and I cuddled literally the whole day (she was glued to my leg ;p) and I jumped Quinn around on the couch (those kids have way too much energy!). After a delicious dinner with fresh grilled steak, Aidan and I went to the Irvine Spectrum (a big outside mall in Irvine) to meet with Claire and her boyfriend. The cool thing about that night was that we saw a lunar eclipse. At the end, the moon turned orange-red and that was really cool to see. Late that night, Aidan and I said our good byes to my friends and we went back to LA. The last few days with Aidan went by way too fast. Monday, my boyfriend had off from work so we had a relaxing day together. Of course, at some moments during the day we were both emotional. It is good to have each other to rely on and cheer each other up. Wednesday thee 23th of January, Aidan drove me to the airport in the morning. My flight was delayed to 3:05 pm, so we had a little more time together. At the airport, my boyfriend and I watched Game of Thrones and cuddles after I checked in my bags and before I had to go trough security. It was an intense hard day for the both of us and for me it felt strange to go back home. Of course I was also very happy to see my friends, family and dogs again after such a long time. In total I have been away for 1 year and 10 months! After my last cuddle with Aidan (it took a while until I was able to let loose of him), I went through security and waited for my flight. In the plane, the KLM stewards starting talking Dutch to me and that felt so weird! I just wanted to talk English, because that felt more natural. After a while, I was kind of used to the Dutch language again though. When I finally landed in Netherlands after a flight of around 10 hours, I felt happy but sad at the same time. It is strange to have two contradictory feelings at the same time, but as an Au Pair it is not uncommon to feel these emotions. Of course, when I saw my family and friends at the airport, they really cheered me up! I was so grateful they all cleared their schedules to pick me up at the Airport. When I arrived on my parents farm, I felt so overjoyed seeing and hugging my two Boxer dogs. I have to say my two dogs help cheering me up whenever I am sad and I am happy to have the 'underbites' back!

Thank you very much for always taking the time to read my travel stories. It was a delight to write them!