What were you grateful for this week?Delicious food and good friends.

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?Waking up way too early and navigating a new city.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. I continue to help set and clear the table, and spend extra time with my host brother while my host mom prepares the evening meal.

Tell us about your week! This week, I continued working hard in my Italian class. I’m picking up new words, and while I’m still not speaking as quickly or as clearly as others in my class, I’m understanding lots. I’m excited to show off what I’ve learned when I go home in a few weeks!This weekend, I headed to Napoli, Pompeii, and Sorrento with M2 and T2. It was an incredibly fun few days, filled with history, culture, and lots of erotic art (seriously, those Pompeiians were crazy). On Saturday, M2 and I headed to the Archeological Museum in Naples and took a walking tour of the city. It was interesting to see how the stereotypes my Northern Italian family and teachers had told me about the South were true! When T2 joined us later that afternoon, we headed underground and embarked on a tour of the sewage and water lines beneath the city. Roman engineering is too cool, and it’s making me rethink how often I teased my own engineer father.On Sunday, the three of us headed to Pompeii, which was the highlight of the trip for me. Getting to see a place I’d read and researched about as a kid was so neat! We explored villas, shops, bathhouses and more, and it was all free thanks to the Italian government initiative that allows for free entry to stuff like this on the first Sunday of every month. After Pompeii, the three of us headed to Sorrento for a lazy lunch near the sea. We wandered through lemon-scented streets and marveled at Mt. Vesuvius from across the Mediterranean. Another weekend where I got to think, “Wow! How lucky am I?!”