What were you grateful for this week?
For the fact that things always seem to work out. 

 

What was the most challenging part of this week?
Sometimes it’s hard to find time just for yourself. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.
This week the family is all going to Sicily for vacation! My free days were spread out this week because of that so I was helping watch my host girl while the parents got ready to leave on Sunday. 

Tell us about your week! 
Okay so Monday was my first free day and I got back from Venice on Monday and I’m really really glad I had that day free because the overnight bus I took was really rough and I got basically no sleep. So I got back and slept all day haha it was a good day of rest for sure and I’m glad I had it.

I went on a bike ride with the family this week too, my host mom’s sisters-in-law had a baby so we drove over to the hospital, which is so so different from hospitals in the U.S. and saw the baby! Then we went and rode bikes to their house I was a little nervous to ride bikes in the street just because driving here is kind of sketchy but after that ride I’ll be all over the city in that bike haha. Later we rode bikes to the city center and got gelato it was so much fun. 

On Friday night I went out to dinner with the host family! We went to Old Wild West, which is an American style restaurant! I was really glad for that because, don’t get me wrong, Italian food is so good but it’s hard to get used to so it was nice to have something I was familiar with!

Saturday I had free so I decided to go see Reggie Di Caserta, it’s a really cool palace that the bourbon Kings stayed in — it was amazing, the grounds and gardens were so beautiful.

Sunday we took a ferry to Sicily! It was an overnight ferry so we all stayed in a little cabin and then in the morning when we arrived in Sicily we drove to Mt. Etna, the second most active volcano in the world! It was soooo cool I never in my life thought I would get an experience like that and I’m so glad I did! We hiked up but not too far cause there have been a lot of eruptions recently, but we could hear the volcano erupting as we walked up and we saw the valley that all the lava flows into it was so amazing. Today we’ll be driving to Cefalu and then Palermo later this week!