Moving to Australia for 6months

Congratulations on graduating Susanna. What a wonderful chance to have new experiences. Just watch out for the wild life. Australia is known for having a high number of toxic creepy crawlies. I'm sure you relatives will help you out with identifying them. A 'dunny' is a toilet and unfortunatley for me A 'Sheila' is a girl.....LOL Think you will be learning English with an Aussie slant

On kids......they are smarter than you think and are quick to learn who will let them get away with things. I had a trick that I used with my friends kids when they were little. If I couldn't tell which one had done something I would stand them back to back, tell them that whoever was telling a lie would have a purple tongue and then get them to stick their tongue out. The one that hadn't done anything stuck their tongue fully out and the one that told a lie tried to stick his tongue out so he could look at at to see if it was purple......silly, but it worked

If you have any real problems sit with them on a step, talk calmly and tell them that you know they are very clever and you know they understand what you are saying. This catches them out and you can see it on their little faces that they are trying to work out how to respond. From that point on they will usually listen to you. Keep in touch when you get there. Good luck and bon voyage x

Well done on Graduating Susanne.

Wow if I had the courage to do what you are I would love to travel abroad!! I know the idea is daunting in the sense of being away from loved ones for so long but 6 months will actually fly by quicker than you think. I mean I remember when I started University 3 years ago and now I've Graduated. What I'm trying to say is that nothing is forever and time goes so quickly it'll be over before you know it...

I know this seems a little wierd but if you need any babysitting tips, I typically find watching Supernanny pretty good (it's a British TV show) but talking about this with the kids parents first sets the boundries and guidelines for you too.

Good luck honey, I would love to hear the mix of an Aussie & Italian accent.

I agree with Lolly on the Supernanny show. She's brilliant

have fun! Enjoy your experence! There are a few aussies here, maybe you can have a meetup

I live in Australia. Sydney is a busy dirty city.. but I've only been through a few roads. From what my friends who have spend alot of timme there, they love it. Just be careful of the western suburbs hahahah.
And on what Sheila said, I've lived here all my life and have never seen a wild poisonous snake or spider. But we have other things like koala and kangaroos and stuff that are awesome.
Dont worry about our aussie slang, not much of it is used these days, rarely or sheila or dunny used. You can say girl and toilet and you'll seem normal.

It's more southern Australia that has the nasties. My mate got bitten by a spider, spent 3 months in hospital and had to use a stick to walk for about 6 months. He'd only gone to do a gig. I've got family in Australia so they like to tease me about my name.......LOL

thank you girls
I've already been there once when I was 18 but just for a month and I loved the city: it is SO different from here!
There is an italian version of the Supernanny! It's called SOS Tata (Tata means Nanny) I hope this twins will be easier to handle (can I say "to handle" of a person?), some of the kids in the show are devils!
Lolly I know what you mean about time passing quickly! I had the same feeling when I've graduated... it seams to me that I enrolled the day before Congrats to you too!
My relatives live in Gladesville, I think it's 20 min far from the city, it should be nice. Where do you live Melvin?

Hi Susanna
You're totally gunna love it here. Like everyone always says, the weather is to die for. And the good thing about living in Sydney is that it's pretty mild, so you won't get that scorching heat and cold winters. I guess the size of the buildings keeps the temperature regulated or something. Depending on where you stay you'll probably see a few poisonous things. Just remember that most spiders OTHER than the huge ones inside the house are poisonous, and don't touch the pretty little blue octopus at the beach, and you should be right. I shouldn't be letting this secret out but the killer wildlife is mostly exaggerated

So what made you decide to be an Au Pair? Was it out of a desire to travel or something? That would be so fantastic to do, but I have no patience for kids so I'd never be able to do it I've debated doing one of those volunteer holidays though, where you build schoolhouses or tag turtles. I'd like to be useful while I'm seeing the world. Fingers crossed I get to, one day

I live 5 or so hours from Sydney and 2-3 hours from newcastle

Hi witch aracne ^^
It summer here and I'm pretty sad to leave it, but I know you have a mild winter which is quite comforting this week I'm going to pack my stuff: sweaters, jackets, boots... so weird because we are 30°C here
I havent really made the decision to become an au pair... it just happened! I was about to finish Uni and looked for something do to and my "aunt" proposed me to look after her daugthers (she's having another baby in august!) and I said yes I'm new to baby sitting so I hope the girls will like me Of course it's great opportunity to travel and improve my english
I've seen on your profile you study archaeology, in europe there are tons of volunteer archaeology camps for young people to do in summer, that would be cool for you!

Yeah I've been thinking about doing something like that for a while now. It'd be a good way for me to check out what it's like actually DOING archaeology, instead of just studying it. It'd be awful if I made it all the way through uni only to find out I hate the job! lol. Plus it'd be nice to feel like I'm doing something. What were you studying at uni?

It's not too cold here right now (I say while rugged up in a jumper and woolly socks and the heater on). The last few weeks have been really warm for winter (about 23*C), though I don't know how cold your winters get, it could be freezing if you're used to warmth all year round.

That's such a fantastic way to go overseas, having an aunt offer you a job. So sudden too! That's the best way, I bet. That way you don't have time to second-guess what you're doing. Hey maybe it'll turn out you love working with kids and you'll find a new career path or something!

a friend of mine did a lot of this camps (in spain, south france etc..) and he told me is great fun because you meet people from all over the wordl
sorry for the silly question but... is that australia a place for archaeology? I mean, are there things to discover? I know nothing on australian history...
I've been studying political science and international relations... I'd like to work in the UE one day, that's my dream..

winter here is very rainy (***hate***) and pretty cold: I would say between 0°C and 15/18°C
I should be fine

Political science, that would be awesome There's a small amount of European archaeology here, but that only stretches back to about 3 hundred years ago, mainly Colonial stuff. The Aboriginal archaeology is pretty fascinating, especially when you remember that they've been here for at least 40 000 years. I'm not all that big on rock art though, which is what a lot of Indigenous archaeology is about. I like my Anglo-Saxon warriors So my plan is to focus on archaeological method, so I can stay here and teach for part of the year, and go overseas on digs in lots of different places for the rest of the year

Anyway, enough crapping on about old stuff. Wow, it gets much colder in Italy than I thought it would. Yeah you'll be fine here. It's like 8* on the coldest winter day in Sydney, you probably won't even notice it! You'll definitely notice the summer heat though. We all complain all the way through summer here. It's not so much hot as it is ridiculously muggy. Great time for celebrations though. BBQs and beer will make you forget all of that

Welcome to Oz once you get here

Sydney would get much colder then it does up here! I'm in North QLD so it's just hot and less hot here. We are lucky if it gets down to 8* up here (if it does it's in the middle of winter at around 3-4am). I've only been to Sydney once and it was like most cities to me, but still fun to see. Sounds like you are going to have quite an adventure. If you ever get the chance try and get out of Sydney for a bit and see some other places. Australia has sooo much to offer then big cities!

Where abouts in Italy are you from Susanna? I visited there in 2008 (as part of a big trip) and it was very exciting. We just went to the touristy places like Venice, Rome and Pisa but it was still lovely and I would love to go back and see more of it. You are very lucky to get the opportunity to travel like that. Makes things much easier. When me and my bf went on our trip we just took lots of money and hoped for the best hahaha, worked it out as we went along. Was the best thing we ever did still.

So get ready to have quite a life changing experience!