Training School

For the sake of all other aupairs: NOTHING can prepare you for the awfulness of training school! The rooms are okay, except those (including me) of us on bunkbeds....which were unaccessible and dangerous to climb upon, in fact many girls dragged their mattresses to the floor! The toilets/bathrooms however, were just disgusting. We had the second largest number of aupairs that week, 262 (with 17 boys!) and in my building there were 100 girls....with 18 showers. So you can imagine the pain of that. Especially when you add the fact that 9 of those showers took at least ten minutes to heat up, and half of those 9 didn't work at all. The shower curtains were slimy and the floors probably tiniea ridden. Now, they tell us aussies that the toilets swirl backwards, but they never tell you that they half fill the bowls with water (alot more then ours) which is very weird...and very unpleasant in instances of intense vomiting! At the school there were bags of used sanitary products sitting open next to the toilets, which was just awful!
The architecture of the buildings was absolutely divine - I loved the feel of being on an American campus! The classes were okay, but pretty boring because I'd done alot of the work. But it was a good chance to meet new people and I made some lovely friends from Mexico, Brazil, Peru and South Africa.
The food: sugary, fat, plastic, imitation, rubbery, basically downright awful

But I DID survive, and so will other aupairs. They could use some sprucing up - some more internet/phones too, but all in all, the experience of spending the week with the most amazing Australian girls, was well worth it! Thanks to AJ, Laura, Megan, Georgie, Casey, Allysha, Nicolette, Sarah, Yasmin, Jess, Emma and Kate (yay kiwis) for being so supportive, fun and understanding and making the training school, despite everything, a total blast.