Thread: Moving to Baeza

She's also been saying some very cruel things about me and my dad, even saying that she will be abusive to my dad if he lets me go, even though they are divorced now.And on one hand, she has spoke about it to people and apparently they all think it's a crazy idea, and on the other hand, my dad has spoke to some people who all agree that it's a great opportunity and a few people he knows have done that kind of work abroad before without experience or knowing the language !. I haven't told the family what my mum said about the concert and my passport, e.t.c.I wasn't sure if i should mention that. I agree that it is blackmail, and i might not go with her anyway. I have been looking forward to the concert for months as it is my favourite band and my mum also likes them.I'm not sure if it's too much short notice for someone else to go, but i'll see what i can do. I definately won't give her my passport, so she might not go to the concert anyway.

I'll let you know what i decide tomorrow.I'll see what the family says to me as well.Thanks for your help.

No problem! I agree that your Mother is being very cruel, I do not understand her motivation for being like this with you, and there is no need for it, whatever her concerns.

As for your concert, what is to stop you still going?, even if your Mother is there, I am sure you could lose yourself in the crowd and have a great time...

In a way i dont feel like i want to go to the concert either, as this has been very stressful. It depends if i can find someone else to go with too. I dont think my mum deserves to go anyway after everything she has said. But you're right, even if she does go i'll still enjoy it.We won't really speak there anyway lol.

Something else i need to add. The brother of the mother of the family said i could just stay till christmas if i want to then decide whether i want to stay or go home. And he said if i decide to stay but still want to leave before June, its know problem, i should just tell his sister what i want to do and that's it.

My dad has just upset me regarding the concert too, as he said the job is more important than the concert. Both are important to me really. And he keeps saying " oh go and listen to your mum then ", and he probably wants me to go so the flight money wont go to waste, and he said if i still cant decide tomorrow morning, he will cancel it anyway, probably because he will want to get his money back.

I think you can see now why i want to go. And if this family does turn out to be nice, it would do my confidence some good.

My dad has had another go at me this morning.He wont let me decide whether i want to go or not, and he is cancelling the flight. He didnt give me a chance to say i still want to go, he just keeps shouting saying he's cancelling it. And he said if i ever want to go abroad again, either me or my mum have to pay half the cost.

Hi Beth, I am sorry to hear your news, although I do think you have to take some of the blame yourself, to put it politely, you have been rather indecisive. Your father has probably come to the end of his tether. As you said some time ago, flights to Barcelona are cheap, could you not pay for it yourself, if you have decided to go?

I have decided to still go for the job !.It's still with the family in Pontevedra. I received a lovely email this morning, and it was very reassuring. The brother of the mother of the family, who i have been corresponding with, said they understood my parents concerns, and he also told me that he has worked abroad himself before, so he knows what i am going through. He also gave me the email address of the girl who is working for them at the moment so that I can write to her too. This has been her first experience of working as an Au Pair as well, and she doesn't know any Spanish at all but is getting on very well there !. I have sent her an email to ask if she can tell me more about her experience, so hopefully i will hear from her too. I was also told that i was the person they liked the most from the beginning, and some other people that had contacted them had tried to con them by asking them to send money, and some people couldn't start until next year. He also said that the best way to learn a language is to learn it in the target country.

I told my mum that i'm going, and, in her words, she said she has disowned me !. She doesn't want anything to do with me anymore, even when i come back apparently.She tried to blackmail me again by saying i am selfish for going away as it will make her and my grandparents, on her side of the family, worry. She also told me about when my uncle, my mum's brother, wanted to move to Australia, and he didn't go because his parents told him not to because they would worry too much.When i told my dad that, he said that when my uncle looks back when he gets older, he will regret not going.I agreed, and i don't want the same thing to happen to me. I will see what i can do about the concert too.

I think my dad was just stressed this morning, and it was because of my mum really, and to be fair, she did try to brain wash me, and i have felt brainwashed partly because of some posts here, to be honest.I'm sorry but it's true. So no wonder i had difficulty coming to a decision.But i'm glad everything is sorted.I just hope that everything goes well when I move, and i will let you know what happens.

It sounds as if you are now getting the re-assurance you desparately needed, I am glad for you, maybe now you can plan and enjoy the experience. I wish you good luck. Let us know how you get on once you are there.

There were many of us here worried for you, I think now maybe both you and all of us can relax, as for your Mother, I am sure she will come around when she sees that you have settled in, she is worried, but just not dealing with it very well, don't hold it against her.

Well, you can say " i told you so ! ". I went to Spain, but it didn't work out. I had to leave after staying there for 12 days. One of the problems was that i had stayed in my room a lot after i picked the kids up from the activities. The only reason i did that was because i couldnt really go and sit watching tv with the family, as i didn't understand Spanish, and they didn't know much English.Plus, they hadn't told me what they expected me to do in the evenings. And the children werent as well behaved as i thought they were going to be. The girl gave me some cruel looks sometimes, and once, when i was teaching them English, they weren't paying attention and kept fighting with each other. Although, sometimes, the English lessons went well. And it was a lovely city. It hurt to leave in a way because, unfortunately, i didn't get to see much of the city. I didn't wander about during the week,, as there wasnt really much time, and i had planned to go round the city by myself on the weekend of my second week there. The weekend of the first week there was terrible. I went with the family and their friends on a trip to the mountains. They didn't even ask me if i wanted to go, which would have been the polite thing to do. We went hiking on the Saturday, and because i wasnt used to it, i kept getting tired. I enjoyed seeing some of the sights there though on the Sunday.The weather had been bad over the weekend though, most of the week actually, and i didnt get to sleep on the Saturday because the heating was on all night. I also caught flu off the kids. However, everything went wrong on the Monday. I picked the kids up from school, and they kept running away from me. I felt really ill, probably from the hike, and also because i didnt feel that i had been having enough to eat and drink.I had been eating a lot less than i do here, as apparently, Spanish families dont eat as much. We had the main meal early in the afternoon !.And they didnt have much food in anyway.Also, we visited the Grandmother a lot, and, although she was a lovely woman, we ate the same sort of food every day, and i ddint like that. If i had stayed, i would have suggested that i ate in a cafe or restaurant sometimes, although i didnt want to offend them. I wondered what kind of a mother the mother of the family was, as she seemed abrupt, even though some people said she was a nice person, and she didnt do her own cleaning or cooking e.t.c.When i got back to their home on the Monday, i burst into tears and the mother saw me. I told her that i wanted to go home. I didn't really mean it, i just said it because i was fed up. She didn't even ask why. Straight away she just said " what are we going to do about your flight " , as if she wasnt bothered !. She told me to stay in while she took the kids to the activites. I thought things through while they were gone and decided that I wanted to stay and give it another chance. However, the mother came back with her brother, and he told me that the mother and father of the family both wanted me to leave. I tried my best to talk them round, my dad even phoned up as he was concerned and wanted to help, but the mother insisted that she wanted me to go. I told them that it had been hard because it was my first week, and they mentioned how i had been homesick quite alot, although that was only because i didnt feel i had been treated fairly, and the mother took the mick out of me by saying " i'm tired, i'm tired ! ", when she mentioned about when we went on the hike.I thought that was really cruel. When we were on the hike, she could see i was ill, and yet she kept physically pushing me !. I felt like grabbing her and shouting at her to get her hands off me. I didn't like the mother at all, but everyone else was ok, except the kids when they misbehaved, although, the rest of the time, they were lovely. I was relieved to get home in a way, but what makes it even worse now is that my dad lost his job just before Christmas, and we have both had trouble finding work lately. I'm not sure if i would do Au Pair work again. If i do, it will be with an English speaking family first, preferably with similar interests, or i might look for something else. I got on very well with the next door neighbour of the family, and the mother's brother and his wife, and the housekeeper, so i miss them. I had also suggested that the brother could have helped me make friends with some English speaking people, but they said that most people don't know English where they live. I know a lot of people in other parts of Spain do though. Anothe rproblem was that i hadnt been communicating with their friends. I had only given them short answers to any questions they asked, but that was only because they didn't know much English, and i thought that if i carried on talking,they wouldn't understand me. And another thing that really upset and confused me was that i didnt get paid at the end of my first week, and i assumed i would. I never found out why that happened. I was supposed to be paid 75 Euros a week. But, when i went home, the mother gave me 30 Euros. it also got on my nerves that i had to write things down a lot when they didn't understand what i was saying, and we had to look words up in a English to Spanish dictionary for them to understand me. They also tried helping me with Spanish, and i learned a little bit. Tje first weekend, when i arrived ( i arrived on a Saturday ) was great though, as i didn't feel homesick for the first few days there, and we went out to a cafe and restaurant that weekend, which i enjoyed. I also felt hurt because my dad contacted me a lot and gave me advice and i could tell that he wanted me to do well. Either that, or he just wanted me to be able to keep the job.

If i decide to work here in the U.K, i'm considering either Manchester or London for now, as i have visited both places and they are interesting cities.