What were you grateful for this week?Friends willing to travel to me. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?Balancing having a visitor. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.Having sleepovers with [my host family’s son]!

Tell us about your week! 

Hello 🙂 I’m still in Lipari and I am slowly but surely turning into an Olive, which is my main aspiration in life so I am quite happy with this development. I’ve found a nice routine in which I get to go for a walk in the mornings, which gives me a good work out, wakes me up, and also forces me out of bed early. I eat so much fruit during the day I can feel myself starting to turn into a Fig (NO ONE TOLD ME THAT FIGS ARE THE GREATEST FRUITS TO HAVE EVER EXISTED). I drink tea. I’m happy. 

I was lucky enough to have a friend from Australia come and visit me this week. His name is Shaun and I met him three years ago when I first moved away from home. Since then, he’s come to Utah several times to stay with us, we’ve met each other in Europe at least once a year, and this time he came and met my wonderful Italians. 

The boys LOVED him. It was so nice and easy having him around because I didn’t feel pressured to stay with him or make sure he felt comfortable. I was able to leave him to his own devices while I went about my day. My family was really gracious about my time with his as well, and they were incredibly accepting of him. We also went to an island called Stromboli and climbed the ACTIVE VOLCANO. It was throwing up lava. I’ve never felt so in awe of anything.