What were you grateful for this week?I was grateful for the housekeeper Pina that kept me such good company this past week.

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?The most difficult part of this week was forcing myself to stay in for an entire Saturday and Sunday to do homework for my online classes. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.This week I went to pick up my host brother from school by myself and took him with some of his classmate’s parents to a birthday party. My host mom was unable to pick him up from work and take him to the party, and my host dad was at work like normal so it was a huge relief for my host parents. 

Tell us about your week! This week I spent a lot of time doing my normal weekly routine of going to my Italian class and then doing an English lesson with my host mom before spending time with my host brother in the evening. 

On Friday night my family hosted a dinner party for two other families of the classmates of my host brother. In total there were 8 adults and 4 children over at our apartment for dinner. Our housekeeper Pina stayed the entire day and ended up sleeping over to help with the dinner preparations. I get along really well with Pina so I was very happy to hear that she was going to be there all day. 

When it came time for dinner all of the guests arrived and we started chatting and opened a few bottles of wine. Due to the fact that I was not able to keep up with the conversation in Italian that I was hearing, I ended up going in the kitchen to see what I could do to help with the food. Pina put me to work and had me feeling useful again. 

Pina prepared a homemade lasagna that was very delicious and also some other dishes that I had never tried before. After the dinner party I ended up going out with my Italian friends. On Saturday and Sunday I stayed in all day and did online homework so those days were very boring.