Week 2

So I am fully into my 2nd week of living in the Netherlands.
My first week literally couldn't have been more perfect. I got to see a ton of friends. I biked around. I was learning my job, but I had the other au pair here with me, so it was easier.
Then Monday hit - BAM! Staying up too late Sunday = not a good idea. Having crappy weather and 2 kids at home ALL day = not a good idea. Not taking SERIOUS measures to learn Dutch quickly so that I can communicate with my kids = incredibly horrible idea.
So...Monday was rough. Really rough. I was frustrated. The kids were frustrated. We battled it out. I didn't really know how to battle it out. I am still not really sure if all of us are fully recovered from it, but at least day 1 is now several days behind me. And at least there are 2 parents in this family who are really great about listening to me, offering suggestions, serving as mediators so that the kids and I can understand when the others blunders because of cultural differences, and talking to the kids about respecting me.
Tuesday = totally different. Even though the weather was crappy still (as it often is), I think the kids and I had a much better day. We really don't understand each other most of the time, but I have seriously committed myself to learning the language. I now officially have ONE friend here that is allowed to talk to me in English. Everyone else is required to speak Dutch (including both parents, unless we are de-briefing about the kids at the end of the day).
I also started my Dutch course on Tuesday, which was great and hilarious. There are 12 of us in the class. There is one Australian, one other American, a South African, a Portugese, 2 Italians (I think?), and a couple of guys from India. I don't know where everyone else is from, but I have 19 more weeks with them to learn. I sat in between the 2 guys from India - freaking hilarious! I literally had to put my head on my desk and laugh a couple of times. They were both so earnest about learning. One really wanted everything written out and wanted to be able to follow along in the book, but the teacher was insistent that we all just listen to her and HEAR the language. I think it took all of his willpower to do what she asked - he was a VERY Type A personality who had decided the correct path to learn and wasn't excited that she wasn't going down it. The other guy sitting next to me wasn't quite so Type A, but he was very keen on speaking everything that the teacher said. So he would sit there and say under his breath (but just loud enough for me to hear and be annoyed) everything that the teacher said. it was awful, because it was just loud enough to slightly interfere with me hearing the teacher, but not really loud enough for me to turn to him and say, 'seriously dude - you gotta stop!" Either way - they were both super nice - one offered to burn the cd for me that we need for the class. The other offered to make photocopies of our homework from the book, since I didn't have the book yet. So I couldn't be too mad, but I was really amused!
I now can count to 100 (kindof) and say all the letters in the alphabet. The highlight of the class was when we were all practicing some words aloud. I managed to say a word with the "g"sound correctly, and the teacher gave me the thumbs up and said, "Prima!"(similar to great). So of course I did the big fist pump in the air. I despise the Dutch "g" sound. Though, it is getting slighty easier to every once in a while get it right. When I say every once in a while, I mean once every 500 attempts. Literally.
Yesterday was my day off, which was nice. Erik's birthday was on Sunday, so I went up and spent the day with him yesterday. We didn't really do much - just hung out with each other, but it was really nice. It is strange how we could go 4 months without seeing each other or knowing when we would see each other, but now that we are in the same country, I think it is way more frustrating to only see each other once a week or once every couple of weeks. I think it will be easier once I have really started establishing a life here and we have more of a routine.
Today the kids are all at school all day, and I don't have to go to school for overblifjten (not sure if I spelled that right), which is when parents/au pairs take turns going to school and chaperoning lunch hour so that the teachers get a 45 minute break. It is really nice for the teachers I think, and I did it for Friso's class on Tuesday. It is easy, but just involves making sure I am around in the middle of the day.
I'm off to get lots of boring necessary things done (like dusting my room. Yuck).