Weekend Class

Driving the oldest to school and then going to the youngest's activities. Then break. Then picking up the oldest and taking care of them while the mother is out. That was more or less my daily routine last week.

On Friday I finished early and was picked up by another au pair. We then drove together to another au pair, where we also spent the weekend. From there we went to the weekend class at Roosevelt University in Chicago. We were there on Friday from 3:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., on Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. On Sunday evening, we were all pretty tired and just wanted to sleep.

On Friday, we had class the whole time, but it was quite interesting. In one lesson, we played a game in smaller groups. Then the groups were split up and we had to play with new partners without talking. We were not allowed to talk to each other because the groups had different rules. With this game, we were supposed to learn what it is like to have communication difficulties and that we should also remember that the other person may have completely different thoughts and opinions.

On Saturday morning, the first hour felt quite long and boring because the woman just wanted to get through it and didn't involve us at all. She didn't even care that some people in the front row fell asleep. But on that day, we also went to a food deposit in Chicago at noon. There we packaged food to be donated to families in need.

In the evening, we went to Chicago Brauhaus. It was really nice to eat good, German food again. There was real, delicious bread again. I actually wanted to eat duck, but it was sold out, so I ordered roulade with dumplings and red cabbage. It was quite tasty, but you could tell that it wasn't real German food. The red cabbage tasted like vinegar sometimes and there was a little too much sauce on the plate :D But the atmosphere was really cool. Like a beer tent at Oktoberfest with live music and a dance floor.

On Sunday, besides the classes, we went to Greektown and Chinatown. I was very disappointed with Greektown. There was only one Greek museum, a few Greek restaurants, and that was it. We had lunch in one of the restaurants and it was more American than Greek. Chinatown was a little more like what I imagined, but still not really. I thought there would be a few streets in Chinese style, but it was more like a small alley surrounded by normal and modern buildings.

Two classes interested me the most. On one hand, I found the lesson interesting where we talked about conflicts and the teacher and au pairs told stories from the lives of other au pairs. On the other hand, I found the lesson about the president's elections very interesting. I'm glad that most Americans seem to be against Trump.

The weekend was definitely great! We are considering doing something like this again :)