Luxembourg, Belgium, and the end to my employment.

Mark and I decided to take a weekend trip to see Luxembourg. We both ended up having a free weekend so we thought it would be nice to get away to somewhere neither of us had seen. We decided to rent a car and drive the 2 hours to the city. On the way we had planned on stopping in Spa Belgium, a city known for it's spa water.

The reason that I had been given a free weekend was because Susanne needed to make sure I didn't go over my hours. She went on a spa retreat (because her life is so stressful with an au pair and a cleaning lady) Thursday morning and wasn't coming back until late late Sunday night. According to German law au pairs are not suppossed to work more than 30 hours a week and 6 hours a day. Earlier Dirk and Susanne had left for a whole 3 days to go on a vacation to Spain. Luckily though this time Dirk was still around. So I only had to work from 6 in the morning until about 11 at night. They had let me have the weekend off because they decided Dirk could handle the kids on his own for a couple days.

Before I left for Luxembourg I had wanted to tell my host parents about some mold that was growing in my room. Near the window and around the furnace in my bedroom there was black mold growing. I hadn't gotten a chance to say anything to them earlier because I hadn't noticed it until recently. I was also really sick the beginning of the week and didn't leave my room for 3 days. I have been really sick this year and think that it may have been due to the mold in my room. When I looked around other parts of the cellar where my room was I noticed other cases of mold growing along the walls and lots of sings of water damage.

I decided to leave the Meisel's a note. Looking back I realize this was not the best idea but at the time it seemed like the best option. I packed my bag for my weekend trip and left the note on the counter. Just to let you know the note was written in good taste. It just said that I would like to let them know that there is mold in the basement and I was wondering if something could be done about. I also let them know that I appreciated them and I wasn't trying to be ungrateful.

This is a picture of Spa. It was a cute town. We stopped here on the way to Luxembourg and grabbed a bottle of Spa water. I also got to have a Belgian style raspberry beer. It was really good, it reminded me alot of the McMenamin's Ruby beerWe stayed here for about an hour or so, after having a couple pastries, then got back on the road to find Luxembourg. I must say, having a GPS navigator is a wonderful thing when you are driving around foreign countries.
It took us about another hour to get into Luxembourg. The drive was really great though. We went through the Mosel Valley region and it was really really pretty.
It took us a little bit of time to find our hotel. The GPS kept sending us down a dead end. Luckily we found it though. The hotel didn't look like much on the outside. In the inside though it was great. The lobby was super modern. Our room wasn't in a modern style though. It was in old English country house style. It was by far the nicest hotel I have ever been in. The room had it's own hallway! On one side of the hall was a door that led to a giant room with a bed, a sofa, chiars, a giant ottoman, and a giant writing desk. On the other side of the hall way was a giant bathroom.

Luxembourg was a really pretty little town. It is half surounded by a fort. I have a picture of Mark and I on one of the for walls. The next picture is of an actual part of the old fort. The last two pictures I took standing at the fort wall looking down into what is below.

This really was a neat little city. It wasn't big but there was alot of restaurants and shops.
On the way home we decided to stop at Spa again. it was a nice little half way mark on the way to Dusseldorf. The whole drive home I was really nervous. I was worried that the Meisel's wouldn't have gotten my note. I was also worried that for some reason they would have been upset that I had left a note

I ended up getting back to the Meisel's house and everyone was already in bed. I was relieved, but still worried about what was going to come in the morning. When I started work at noon the next day there was no mention of my note from Susanne at all. She didn't ask me how my weekend had been and she really didn't say much to me in general besides letting me know what my duties for the day would be. It wasn't until about 7:30 at night that she told me that I was to have a meeting with her and Dirk at 8:30 and I should go down stairs and come back up then. Needless to say, this didn't help to calm my nerves.

I don't know if the meeting could have gone much worse. They started out by telling me that the mold was entirely my fault. That the only reason it was growing in my room ( and the rest of the basement) was because during the winter when I had my heat turned on I did not open the window. I guess at the time I felt like it would be a waste of energy, heating a room with a window open when there is snow outside, but apparently I was wrong? They let me know that before I came when no one was living in the room they did not have an issue with the mold. I think that would have been because no one was living there so the heat wouldn't need to be on. But what do I know?

So after the mold was blamed on me (the house was built in the 1800's btw, most basements made back then were not meant for people to live in, also there was mold peeling the paint in other parts of the cellar when I had first arrived) Susanne started to ask me why I spent so much time in my room if the mold was so bad. Of course, thinking that we were all mature adults I believed that I could be honest with them. I told them that I didn't feel comfortable coming upstairs. I said that I couldn't exactly put my finger on what it was I just didn't feel welcomed. Well that statement right there opened up a huge can of worms.

Susanne started her Ali-bashing tirade by telling me how unfriendly I am. That I am one of the most unfriendly people she has ever met. Her reason you may ask, is because I don't go over and spend time with the neighbors... If I had known that not going door to door and selling my kindness was a requirement to be seen as friendly in this host family I may have looked else where from the beginning.

The next thing on Susanne's list of Ali-flaws was that I am horrible with children. She said she did not understand why I would ever want to work with children because I am so terrible with them. No she did not have specific instances or anything. She also contradicted herself in the very next sentence by telling me how much fun the children have with me and how much they love me... Also just for people reading this that may not know I am not in fact horrible with children. I have gotten really high reviews from people who I have worked with around children. Susanne was just trying to get to me. If you would really like to hear more about some of the other things she said to me I can tell you when I get back, I don't feel like going into too much more detail on a public blog. The bottom line was that after she was finished attacking my person character I told her and Dirk that I did not think I could continue working for them.

After telling them this they asked me to pack up a weeks worth of stuff and come back the next Monday to tell them if I still wanted to discontinue my employment with them. I don't know about you, but getting kicked out by someone doesn't really make you any more fond of them. So I went downstairs and packed a bag and left. I wasn't absolutely positive where I was going to go, but thank God Mark said it was no problem if I stayed with him for the week.

The week went by pretty quickly, I had a meeting with the Au Pair agency which wasn't all that productive. On Monday I text Susanne and asked her when would be a good time to come over. I was planning on bring Mark with me so he could help me get all of my stuff, I have too much stuff. Susanne said that wasn't a good idea and I needed to come by myself so that they could have another talk with me. I had to wait all day until 9 at night to go back over there.

When I got there it was just Dirk that there to have a talk with me. Susanne didn't come downstairs at all. I told him that my feelings hadn't changed at that it would be best if i moved on. He said that was fine but he had a few things he wanted to talk to me about. He said that in order for me to get my money from April ( I had worked the entire month minus 2 days) I would have to go to the government office and change legally change my address. After this I would have to bring the reciept back to them as proof and they would give me my money. More hassle when all I wanted was to be done.

It took me about 1/2 an hour to throw all of my stuff in my suitcases( plus a couple extra bags). Luckily Mark was waiting down the street to help me get my stuff because he was allowed in the house. So I sent him a text and he came over and waited outside when I lugged my suitcases up the narrow steep stairs. My host family were too polite at this point to offer to help me carry anything up.

After I finally got my stuff out and we were on our way I started to feel a little bit more relieved. I went the next day and changed my address. I wasn't able to make it to the Meisel'd house at a time that fit their schedule so I went to the neighbors to pick up my money. And that is where I am now. Now my blogs can start being more fun because now my life is more fun.