From taxi strikes to blue churches, today (my second day) is overall, a better day than yesterday. I suffered from first day blues, massively. I was rather panicked that I was perhaps not big or clever enough for this kind of challenge--and a challenge it is--- I am responsible for a five year old who doesn`t understand a word I say. And a panicked "mama" didn`t help me AT ALL.
And as Tina pointed out "We live better in the west" i.e I am in the Berlin equivalent to Surrey; haha, well maybe not quite. But what Tina was trying to say is this is the middle-class part of Berlin. When I asked if the West hated the East (you get that impression) she said " Ohhh yes, well, the East dont live so well." However, thats not to say Tina and Christo Senior ( and yes I have to point out the Senior because believe it or not some people think its a good idea to call their son after the Father!) are stuck up. And they have been very welcoming to me.

Tina is very full-on; obviously trying to make sure everything is ok for me- but she can`t eat a meal without leaving the table to show me that she bought this for me or she could show me this etc... And as she said last night " I am trying to understand you," in other words shes very nosey! But thats fine, I dont mind. And she wants me to know her too and how brilliant she and her family are and I dont mind that either. I can tell she appreciates the female company.

Papa doesn`t speak any English, a little bit but not really but we smile and laugh nervously at eachother. And when I got to Berlin airport and I saw a stern faced man clearly looking for someone my nerves hit the roof so you can imagine my relief when two smiling figures came rushing towards me.

Christo Jr is the cleverest five year old I`ve ever met.( And its no surprise when he goes to every extra class there is) He knows you aren`t supposed to use olive oil in the pan "no hannah, no" and he knows that you have to open tins with sharp knives " hannah here hannah." And even though at first he found it hard to accept that I didn`t speak any German, we have aquired a language inbetween the two which works great for us. So we both know "eat" "ball" "trinken (drink)" Vas ist das (in) deutsch?" "speilplatz" (playground) and "come"- so its a lot of "Christo, come" "Hannah come" "nein! Christo" "Speilplatz?" " Do you have the hunger?" (thats my favourite!) And we had a lot of fun making tea yesterday. Until Christo did a bit of boundary testing by taking a little experiment with blackcurrent juice a bit far-he spilt it all over the place and on the white table mats, and unfortunatley for me it was hilarious so I had to put my best `I-am-cross` face on.

So thats the family, ish. Oh I did forget to mention that they are not German- they are both originally from Bulgaria. And did you know that Tina could speak five languages!??? Impressive (she told me with much modesty....)

I decided to spend my first week just concentrating on getting to know the family and being an aupair to be my best ability. Its not Berlin here like we know it as the cool city with a lot of arty things going on, but I am taking the experience for what it is at the minute. And when I get used to the timing of picking Christo up etc I will do a lot more exploring.

Talking of picking Christo up- its that time of day! We go to the Speilplatz now and then mama asked me to teach him some verbs. The speilplatz is bloody amazing- I wish it was acceptable for 19 year olds to run around on swings etc.

Love x