Au pair in a quiet house in the countryside in Castellón province, Spain

Infos

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  Description

  We are looking someone to spend time with our toddler Leire during the afternoon, help with our baby Lluna, housework and cooking. Babysitting experience is highly appreciated. Please, read the help section for details.
  
  On June 2024 Leire will be 2,5 year and Lluna 10 months.
  
  UPDATE:
  
  In the past we asked only 3 hours per day of workaway volunteering for food and a room to sleep. We focused our space more to travellers who wanted to either experience our culture and learn spanish or just visit our region, while we were also learning from other cultures and practising english.
  
  Now, due double maternity/paternity with a toddler + a baby, and because Igor is very busy with his business, we must give a different approach to our space:
  
  In this moment, we need more help hours than the 3 hours per day we asked at first, and we are paying the extra hours as an aupair job (5€ per hour). You pay no room rent, no food, no electricity, no water, NOTHING, while you get an income.
  
  If you read our positive feedback and you are a traveller who just want to visit lot of places in short time, sorry but this is no longer the place for you!
  
  With the current events, and with the life so expensive nowadays, our space is more useful for people who really needs it... for long-term travellers that needs an income but doesn't feel like working just to pay rental and other expenses. So we prefer more than 1 month stays and workawayers that are looking to do more help hours. Of course we are yet doing the culture exchange part :)
  
  
  *****
  
  We are Lara & Igor, an alternative couple + Leire and Lluna, who are living off-grid at the countryside because we got tired of living in the city, we prefer a quiet place, we like nature and feeling free!
  
  We also like travelling and getting into other cultures, listening a so wide range of music and cinema, etc. To get fun we enjoy playing games with others, socalize, etc. Lara enjoys watching series and films, cooking, exercise and reading books. Igor is more of music and games. So we have the range of entretainment pretty complete hehe. We also like hiking and sometimes we do a walkie around the house with our cat Nora who loves to walk around with us :)
  
  About our family project, we have been parents recently for second time. Due to maternity/paternity we are short of time, so we need help (check the help section). Please, if you are allergic, be aware you are sharing the accomodation with Katana and Nora, our cat friends.
  
  Also be aware, that there won't be meat or fish at our home. We are totally isolated from eletric system for better and for worse, so due being solar-powered we have a fridge but not a freezer. It would spend a good portion of the battery. And yes, as you guessed, we are veggie.
  
  LGBT+ welcome :) And we prefer non-smokers for a reason: We are in the middle of the mountain and here landscape is dry (as it is in most of Spain). So out of the house is forbidden to smoke by law to avoid fires, while into the house is also not possible due to our babies Leire and Lluna.
  
  To reach our place we often pick up workawayers at Castellon city train/bus station. From Valencia the economic train to Castellon is only 6€, from Barcelona is more expensive and takes more time since it is not close. Buses and BlaBlaCar to Castellon city are also a good option. There is also an Airport in Castellon and we can also pick up there, but it is tiny and there are few flights from few cities in Europe.

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Pratique d’une langue

  Baby-sitting et jeux créatifs

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Aide à la maison
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  About language and culture, we would like to improve our English pronunciation, and if you want to learn or practise, we also speak the world widespread Spanish and the not so popular Valencian-Catalan :P We are also open to learn a bit of your language if your motherlanguage is another, and we are happy to share cultures, gastronomy, music, get fun, etc. Valencian Community is the region of paella so you will be able to taste the REAL PAELLA, the tasty Orxata drink, or the not so healthy Carajillo. Here our mother language is Valencian, a Catalan dialect, but we also speak Spanish. So people in this zone speak both Valencian Catalan and Spanish as natives.

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  Projets impliquant des enfants

  Ce projet peut impliquer des enfants. Pour en savoir plus, consultez nos directives et conseils ici.

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  Aide

  About what we pay, with 3 hours per day from Monday to Friday you get the room to sleep and the food, as we offered to other workawayers in the past. But now, each extra hour you do besides the 3 hour, we pay 5€/hour.
  
  The weekends you decide, but unlike during the week, we count each hour as an extra hour. We always asked workaway hours only from Monday to Friday, so it is fair to pay each hour you help in the weekend.
  
  *****
  
  About the amount of helping hours:
  
  - In the afternoon, the help time some days will start at 17:00 while other days at about 18:30, this depends on Leire if she falls sleep in the car while returning from the pre-school.
  
  The finish time will be at about 20:30 after preparing the dinner, so expect 3 hours and half in the afternoon some days or just 2 hours other days.
  
  - During the morning, we are more flexible. We are happy to pay lot of hours, but we understand that you may also prefer to rest.
  
  If you prefer to do less hours, at least we are asking for 1 hour either early in the morning just after the breakfast or late in the morning while Lara prepares the lunch. In this way, you will have the rest of the morning free, with enough time to either walk around, ride the bicycle, go to the town, rest in the house, or whatever you prefer to do...
  
  If you are looking for doing more hours, don't worry, there is always something to do here :)
  
  *****
  
  To sum up:
  
  -Mornings, more flexible, depending how much do you want to work.
  -Afternoon 17:00-20:30 or 18:30-20:30 depending on Leire's doing a nap or not.
  
  Don't worry, we have a whiteboard where the workawayers note the help hours each day, so we count all the help time!
  
  *****
  
  About the tasks babysitting:
  
  - Staying with Leire during the afternoon (Creative play, going for a walk, etc).
  - Feeding Lluna with the spoon.
  - Help calming down Lluna.
  
  Housework:
  
  - Cooking the dinner.
  - Clean the dishes that doesn't fit the dishwasher.
  - Tiddy and help cleaning the house.
  - Helping Lara.
  
  Optional extra hours:
  
  - Helping Igor with the business (a water tank online store) when there is too much work.
  - Manual work outside like removing weeds, or once in a while, helping Igor fixing some stuff around the house.

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  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Catalan: Courant
  Espagnol: Courant
  Anglais: Intermédiaire
  Italien: Débutant

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  We are open to do conversations either in english, spanish or catalan. We also understand italian and portuguese, at least we shared our space with workawayers from Italy and Brazil speaking their own language, and we could communicate. So you must speak either one of these 5 languages! Other languages, I'm afraid that communication would be not possible, sorry for thar. We are happy to improve our english, but probably you want to learn or improve spanish, so we can do a mix :) We are even open to learn italian but the communication will be a bit more tricky :P Lara also dreams about learning Korean some day, so if you are Korean, Lara will be very happy to take private classes =)
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  Hébergement

  Our home is off-grid in the countryside. There is a fence around the terrain but we leave the entrance door open while we are in the house. Sometimes you will see someone working some field near the house, and once in a while some car or some cyclist will pass by the track near the house. Closest town is Costur, of only 500 inhabitants. So expect to stay in a quiet place for better and for worse :)
  
  To go around you can use a bicycle, but the area is a bit steppy, so at the end you probably go walking when going up.
  
  Despite being isolated, WiFi works ok here, for example, we often used Netflix or HBO... before the kids :P. There is also a bunch of books in spanish. Since the house is not big, this is unavoidable at the end: we can offer you entertainment with more interaction... We are always open to conversations and there is also a collection of board games (yay!). We like to play but if Leire is around it is not possible. By the way, if you contact with us and write the word "pinneapple", we will know you are reading at least most of the description... This helps for example, to know that you are really interested, in case of more workawayers writting us.

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  Autres infos...

  During the weekends, we often visit friends or family in Castellon city so we can take you there. From Castellon, for about 6€, you can take a train for example to Valencia city or Peniscola touristic town. We can also take you to the coast if you like the beach, or to other places near Castellon city like Benicassim (a touristic town in the coast) or Desert de les Palmes (mountains close to the coast with amazing views).
  
  Also, every month we do some activity with our friends (go-karts, canyoning, kayak, via ferrata, etc) so you can join if you like the activity :)
  
  Also, this depends on the rains, but spring is nice to collect wild asparagus around the house. Spring is the perfect time to be here, not cold, not hot, and few rain days.
  
  And some weekend, if we don't have other meetings or stuff to do, we can take to some nearby nice town (as Vilafames, Fanzara, Xodos and Culla).
  
  If you came by car and prefer to visit places by your own, these are the times by car:
  
  The picturesque Vilafames at about half hour. The artistic Fanzara, and Benicassim at the coastside, both at about 40 minutes (to different directions). Some nice small towns as Xodos (40 minutes), Culla (45 minutes) and Ares del Maestre (55 minutes). The touristic cave Coves de Sant Josep which you visit with a small boat (45 minutes). The natural parks of Sierra Espadan, Desert de les Palmes (about 50 minutes) and Penyagolosa (about 1 hour). The big city of Valencia (about 1 hour). And at 1 hour 15 minutes, the touristic towns of Peñiscola and Morella.

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d’accueillir les digital nomads

  Yes, why not! Even if we are a bit isolated, we installed an antenna for a decent WiFi connection. After testing the speed, it shows 10-15Mb/s download and 5-10Mb/s upload. In terms of use: for videocalls is not a so good connection and some days it works really bad (specially in storm days, I don't know why), but for the rest of uses internet works properly. So if you are a digital nomad often doing videocalls and you have not enough patience, think it twice!

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  Espace pour garer des vans

  There is no problem of parking here for campervans or whatever. We also have an old caravan here.

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  Possibilité d'accueillir les animaux

  Ask before, since we have 2 cats , so they may be scared.

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Un

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  Nombre d'heures attendues

  About 6 hours a day, 5 days a week (see help section for details)

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