Week one

So these last few days have been hectic. There has been a lot of new things coming up and new places to drive to. It's exhausting when there's a lot of new things going on all the time.

Anyway O and I are like best friends now. The other day we were playing with the dominos and we ended up making a few different things. Here on the pictures above you can see that we made the Eiffel tower and a man that's sitting driving a car with a hat and a scarf. We had a really nice day that day. O has also started going to this international school where there are classes in all kinds of different languages. There's even a Swedish section. There was a mixup which made getting her to class and everything got a lot more complicated but eventually everything got settled.

In the morning we found this fellow in the sink

Hannah is enjoying the nice hot weather

Hannah came to visit me yesterday and helped me out with everything. It's nice having her around. The meatballs were appreciated. The bus came from the wrong direction which made Hannah miss the bus so she had to come back since it was the last bus that passed. She ended up helping me tidying up after supper and helped me get the lads to bed. P was going to come home late since there was this meeting in the international school. We went and picked her up and dropped Hannah off at the train station.

Preparing meatballs and mashed potatoes

O is helping us out with the dinner and she's making some vinaigrette for the salad

Since I didn't really know where these new places were I decided to try and find them beforehand during my free hours. In the end I ended up filling the entire day and I didn't get any free time until P got back home. I was a bit unhappy with the outcome since I wanted to do some reading so I came up with the brilliant idea to bring the bible with me when I went to pick up O from school. Since there are so many students in the school and all the parents have to pick them up you need to be there in good time so you can find a parking space. While I sat parked, waiting for the gates to open, I did some more reading. 

 

I decided to read the Bible while I was waiting

All the parents picking up their children

After we got home I made some lunch and tried to make sense of where it was I was supposed to go with O next. P had sent me some descriptions which helped me get a grip of where I was going. I drove her to her dancing class and went back home. It felt like I only got in through the door before I had to go pick her up again. I grabbed something quick to eat and asked T if he wanted to come with me and pick up O. He wasn't doing anything else so he decided to come with me. After we picked up O we decided to try and locate where O was going to have her sculpture class. We found the right road but we just weren't sure about where on that road it was. We headed back home before we found it and thought we'd call P and see if she knew. Shortly after arriving home Hannah showed up. I called P and with her help I knew where to go. We got there and found the place and waited for them to start. The time went by and we started to wonder whether or not it was on today. There was a number on the door with some information. Hannah called the number and found out that the class doesn't start until October which meant I had stressed for no reason.

Hannah and O spent some time in the garden while I took care of the washing and some housework. When we got in the door T headed out to get his haircut and Ta had gone over to the neighbour. Later on I tuned T's guitar and played for a little while. I'm going to start teaching him soon. The rest of the day went smoothly.

It has never been so apparent to me before that I am a foreigner. I've been in Finland for so long I don't really think of myself as a foreigner too much and I'm still able to get things done there with little difficulty. Here it's a lot more challenging. My french is not that good yet and I'm having a hard time communicating with people so it's difficult to get things done. It's hard to be independent when you can't really do anything. I've been a foreigner most of my life but it's never felt like this before. Suddenly you get an understanding of how hard it must be for refugees.

My time here has also given me a bit of insight into parenthood. I always knew that parenthood isn't all that easy but now I have a greater understanding. There's always a lot you need to think of. I've never really cared to check the weather until now. It's a bit fun when people assume I'm the girls father and I explain to them that I'm just the Au Pair. I suppose they don't really consider that since nearly all au pairs are female.

In my time here it has become more clear how important my faith in God means to me. Things have been a bit tough and draining but it helps to know that God is with me. I feel that it's more necessary for me now when I'm out in the world basically all alone, with the exception of Hannah. I think we both feel the same way about this. It's kind of the only stability we have right now. I think it's in situations like these you just start to pray more and rely on God more than you would when you're among friends and family and you know you're safe.

It's amazing how much your life can change in a very short while.