I came to Sweden to work as an au pair 1st of March 2004. I started out in South of Sweden, close to Helsingborg and my first 4 months I hated every minute of being here. Partly because I had a horrible-horrible hostfamily who saw me as cheap labour and treated me as one and partly because I really wanted to go back to the States ( but my visa application got denied).I was sad, confused and my future was uncertain.I was in a new country with no friends, didn't know the local language and the family I lived with was anything but nice.and my last au pair job was in The States where I was treated very-very well. I was in chock! With the experiences I have today I would have dumped that family in a heartbeat, but because of several reasons I felt trapped back then and didn't believe that there were better options out there. The plan at that point was to stay in Sweden until I figure out what to do next ( I couldn't stay in Estonia because the future didn't seem that bright there at that moment. I had no job nor higher education and I lived with my parents). Little did I know that the country that I so strongly disliked would become my home. Anyways, after 4 months in Sweden things started to get better because I had became friends with this fantastic girl from the church who invited me over to her place during the weekends. We had so much fun together. After few months I decided to give Sweden another go because there were some nice people in this country after all. After 4 months I dumped the horrible host family and moved in with my newfound friend. I would have left the family much sooner but I needed to save some money and working for them was my only income ( as a Christian I try not to hate people but this familj really challenges that part of me). Me and my friend had a fantastic trip to Portugal and really liked living with each other, but after 2 months I felt that I have to decide what to do next because sooner or later I have to find a new job. At that point I didn't know any other work than au pair so it felt natural to try to find a new au pair job again. This is what I had done since I was 19. I had been an au pair in England for 6 months before and I decided to find a new host family over there.I had a bit warmer feelings towards Sweden by now, but not warm enough to want to stay any longer. I started the whole agency process again and I almost found a host family in England... And then....I can't really remember why, but for some reason I decided that I want to stay a bit longer in Sweden. I believe it was because my new friend and her family made me feel welcomed and maybe also because I wasen't ready for a big change again. I can't remember the details how everything happened but one day I was taking a bus to Malmö to go for a jobinterview for an au pair position ( yeah, what else ;). I liked the new family right a way and soon after I moved in. I really needed to meet good and kind Swedish people and this is exactly what this family was. I felt welcome in their home and they were easy to live with. I really hope they felt the same about me. After a while I started to feel better and gained some new self-confidence (being surrounded by mean people in a new country can really break one down, even if it was only 4 months) and I really enjoyed my 1,2 years in Malmö. I met new Estonian friends who also lived in Malmö. With some of them I am still close even today. Specially wirh E ( you know who you are. Puss).I started to take learning Swedish more seriously and I even made some new Swedish friends through church. I even started dating Swedish guys. Everything was going so well and I felt more and more that, hey, maybe Sweden wasen't that bad afterall ina long term perspective. And then I met my husband....

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