What were you grateful for this week?I grateful that my host family offered to let me take the week off to spend traveling around with my family. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?My family and I went to dinner with my host family, and the language barrier was a little rough! 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.I didn’t really spend much time with them, but I was thinking about them a whole lot while I was with my family! 

Tell us about your week!I was with my family in Paris over the weekend, then on Tuesday we drove from France to Italy! We arrived really late Tuesday night. My family got an AirBnB in Valpone, which is just two kilometers from where I live in Canale. We spent the next couple days exploring all over my favorite places near here.

On Wednesday we stayed around Canale, Alba, and Asti. We toured lots of churches and went to some secondhand/antique stores. It was a good time!

On Thursday we went to Genova. We visited the aquarium, which I had been to before. It was so much better this time because there were way less people than when I went previously. We also found a beach there and found a bunch of sea glass. Genova is one of my favorites places I’ve visited while being here. It’s just so beautiful!

On Friday we went to Torino. They had an antique market going on in the streets, so that was pretty neat. Then we toured a palace and a few churches.

Friday evening we met my host family for dinner at a pizzeria. It was fun for my two families to meet each other. Communicating was pretty difficult though. When I’m alone with my host family we take things slow and are very patient with each other and we can communicate pretty effectively most of the time. But it’s a lot harder in a large group, especially when you just want to socialize. Everyone seemed to get along really well though, and some conversation did happen. 

My family left on Saturday to drive back to Paris and catch their plane there. It was a lot of fun to spend the week with them, and eat gelato literally every day we were here in Italy. It’s crazy to think I’ll be seeing them again in less than a week and a half!