100 Days and still going strong...

Saturday the 12^th of September marked my 100^th day in Wisconsin, and as I looked back at my last few months I cannot believe how acclimatized I have become. You know you are comfortable in a new country when you crave food from shops here and your sentences stop beginning with “in my country.”

Fernanda, Monique, Stephanie and I at a mini golf au pair meeting

The day was celebrated by drinking American beer! Ha ha! We had an au pair meeting at the Millers Brewery in downtown Milwaukee, there were 7 girls altogether. We went with our counselor plus the two counselors from the other agency. The tour was a walking tour of like 4 blocks, so by the time you get to the end of the tour, you don’t care what the beer tastes like, you’re just parched.  I had this one beer it was called Berry Weiss, and oh my… it changed my point of view of beer. It’s like alcoholic gummy berry juice. (Unfortunately most pubs don’t stock it though) And just to clarify the under aged girls were given any soda of their choice definitely not beer (the legal US drinking age is 21 and driving age 16 hmmm…a little strange but oh well)

Nadine, Yardely, Fernanda, Vanessa, Tamara, Rieki and I at the Miller Tour

After that a Brazilian au pair (Fernanda) and a Columbian au pair (Yardley) and I decided to check out the ‘Indian Summer Fest” which not Indian like I would expect in South Africa, it is American-Indian. It was really nice to see the dancing (which looks a little strange if you don’t understand the concept behind it, one man told me convincingly enough that there was no way they were stoned…I beg to differ.) One act that truly stood out in my mind was a dance that 5 guys performed on a wooden pole that was like 100 meters (ok exaggeration) above the ground and they kind of bungeed off the pole and swung around in a circle, it was hectic!

Mexican Dancing

Also the food was pretty cool, after weeks of trying to explain to my host family what ‘vetkoek’ was (for those that are not familiar with weird (but tasty) South African cuisine, it is a dough deep fat fried and stuffed with mince/ground beef) when I explained this to Amanda (my host mom) and Jena (the babysitter) they asked me why would I think that stuffing dough with “mints” would taste good, that’s when I found out the American phrase is “ground beef”. So anyway, I found a meal called an Indian taco, which is ‘vetkoek’ with salad! Mission accomplished J

Yardy, Vanessa and I at Mexican Fest

The night ended with a farewell (for a girl I had never met) and a welcome (for a girl that I had also never met) but when you trying to make friends those are minor details! We ended up at a place called Hooligans (which was a lot tamer than the name suggests!) with 2 Colombian au pairs (and a Colombian guy who knew one of the girls), an au pair from Panama, one from Romania, and another  from Brazil…and a few more from countries that I not only cannot spell, but can’t pronounce either! It was really interesting with everyone so glad to meet other girls either from their country or that speak the same language as them…I of course just had me, myself and I. Well that was until every realized the only things we had in common was our jobs, America and yup…English! (However bad and fragmented) So this wonderful day-turned-night ended with all of us dancing to the some old school songs in a place called RC’s. Fun times in Milwaukee!

Some more dancing...