What were you grateful for this week?Hostels. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?My week was a bit weird and stressful and I was unable to go to class at all.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.Spending a WHOLE day with [the older son] and his classmate. Full Mom day.

Tell us about your week!  Well, this week I did not attend a single day of class. Which was not how I wanted it to go, but there wasn’t a whole lot that could have been done to prevent it. Tuesday I spent all day with [the older son] because [my host mom] was preparing for their family trip, and it was easily one of the more exhausting days that I’ve had in a while. 

Tuesday was also officially Halloween, so C and I attended a Halloween party thrown in someone’s apartment (this is not as dangerous as it sounds, I promise), and we ended up sitting on the couch eating cake with glitter blood on our faces. 

Wednesday, C had the day off and my family prepared to go out of town. So I went out to Gallarate with her, and we spent the evening watching movies. The following day I was MEANT to go to class, but being so far outside of the city…I skipped it. Thursday was spent in Gallarate, doing much of the same as Wednesday. Then I went home for the evening to pack because we went to….

NAPLES yayayay. We’ve been meaning to go to Naples for a while now, but it’s really far away for just a two day trip, so this weekend was perfect. Early Friday morning we set out on a train and got there in the early afternoon. Upon arriving at our hostel, we were greeted very casually by the owner, Giovanni (ironic. Cannot escape it), who was in the middle of cooking lunch for everyone that was staying in the hostel. I’ve been to a lot of places and stayed in a lot of hostels, and I have never experienced anything like that before. It was a quiet hostel and Giovanni made it all very personal. He’s very proud of his city. 

On Saturday we ventured to Pompeii with a girl that was staying in our room, who’s from Michigan, and a girl that we happened to sit next to on the train ride there that was brave enough to speak to us, and was from Washington.

In the evening we tried the famous Napoli pizza from Gino’s, and it was incredible, especially after waiting in line for an hour and a half. Well worth it. 

Sunday, Giovanni took C and I out on motorcycle tours of the city, where he bought us gelato and coffee, and showed us incredible views, then later cooked us another lunch. He made the trip what it was. Naples is huge, so I know that I will be going back there and I hope to stay with Giovanni again.