What were you grateful for this week?
Meeting another Rome Abroad traveler! Also, my sweet host family. They’re the best!

What was the most challenging part of this week?
Navigation.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. 
This week I made a special effort to connect to the boy that I watch. He isn’t the most comfortable with English, but it was cool to see him open up a little bit as I spent more time with him. I also treated the kids to little pizzas with my own money. It felt great to do something fun with them.
 

Tell us about your week! 
This week was a great week for me! I met another au pair in my same town who works as an English teacher in addition to being an au pair. She’s from Argentina and is really cool. She took me to a little bakery and we got Italian hot chocolate. I don’t like American hot chocolate very much at all; it always leaves me feeling really sick. But Italian hot chocolate? Man, that stuff is incredible. It’s like a cup of the hot fudge sauce that you put on ice cream. I’m really sad that I have to come home to the USA with our shoddy hot chocolate 😉

This was also the week of bike rides. The kids and I went on a few this week, mostly into the city center. It was mostly fun, a little stressful because Italian drivers are crazy and my kids are adventurous and so my mom-brain was all like “please do not get hit by a car” but hey, we all survived. Also, fun fact about me: I actually suck at riding bikes. But we had a lot of fun and that’s what matters, right? It was fun to go to the places they love to go, ie their grandparents’ jewelry store, the local book shop, etc. It’s also always good to spend time with the kids.

I actually got to see Milan, the city. Last week at Salone Del Mobile, I didn’t really get the chance to explore, but this week A from the Rome Abroad program came up for a day trip and we walked from Centrale station to the Duomo to Castello Sforzesco. We walked around Parco Sempione for a long while cause it was just so pretty, my goodness. We sat in the sun at an amphitheatre and had a deep chat about life. Did some window shopping at these cool shops, some Italian, some not. Got some gelato, pizza, and drinks. We were living the dream!

Easter with my host family was a party. They are super respectful of me living my religion, so after I went to church we had lunch with the whole family and even my host nonna’s cleaning lady was there. My host dad kept us all laughing by playing music and singing along, and at one point he asked me to teach him the Macarena, which I did. We had so much food, and it was all so good, and it was fun to meet some of my host parents’ friends and socialize with them.

Literally I’m so blessed to be here in Italy with these wonderful people. I’m grateful every day!