Sunshine

6 Months is nothing. Literally nothing. It's 26 weeks. And of those 26 weeks I've already had 2. 13 Times the two weeks I've had now and I'll already be done with being an au pair. Isn't that absurd? I never realized how fast time goes actually. If I look at it like this, I could do high school all over again and it would be nothing. Okay, maybe not, I won't try, but just as an example.

I don't have to tell you how beautiful everything is here, then I would keep repeating myself. But I'd love to tell you how lovely the weather here is, just to make you a little jealous. 27 Degrees and it's just spring now! Maybe that's not a very good sign, I hope it won't be 40 degrees in summer, that would be a little too much for me, eventhough I love warm weather. Never mind, for now I'm loving the sun while the weather in Holland is only getting worse. I'm sorry, but yes, I do like that.

And with such nice weather I don't stay inside of course. I go out and about. Saturday I visited Sydney with Dagmar again! And this time we didn't only see the Opera House from across the water, I actually stood next to it. I thought it was amazing, since my grandparents have stood there as well and I get to see the same places as they've seen many years ago. It has something special. And doing it with a friend is even better.

The Botanic Garden are next to the Opera House, so we decided we wanted to take a look there as well. And there we were, living the australian life we - or at least I - dreamed of; lying in the grass, under the blue sky and the warm sun, with a view on the sparkling water and looking at all the typical tourists with their cameras. Most of them Japanese or Chinese by the way, no offence. Though not many Chinese and Japanese are tourists here, many of them actually live here.

On Sunday, Dagmar came over to Rose Bay, where I live. She lives in the centre of Sydney, so she's only experienced the busy city-life and I wanted to show her that there were some beautiful places nearby. And so I did! We went to the cliff that's on a two-minute-walk away from my house and we laid in the sun and took pictures. For both of us one of the first relax days since we've been here in Sydney.

I feel like I'm settling in now. I feel more myself towards Claire and Alex and I get my place in the family now. Last week everything has been a bit disorganised again - not the first time, nothing has been normal since I've been here - because Claire has had an operation last Tuesday. A vein has been removed from her leg, so now she's not allowed to walk too much. Of course she does, I don't think there's one mother in the world that takes time for herself, so today I told her to sit down after she'd been busy the whole weekend. And luckily she did. Luckily, otherwise I would've had to drag her onto the couch and I don't think I would've remained their au pair then for much longer. Matilda grows so much everyday, I think it's really special that I get to see it. When I came here for the first time, she just started to crawl and now she's already taking her first steps. It's unbelievable!

Something else that's unbelievable is that I'll have my first singing lesson tomorrow! I found a good singing teacher I think. I hope, because I could use some lessons to learn a bit of technique and maybe get over my fear of singing for people. Or at least the I-want-to-run-away-nerves I get when I have to perform. I'll cross my fingers and just hope for the best!