What were you grateful for this week?
Every week I am grateful for my loving host family. They are absolutely amazing and more than I could’ve ever asked for. I love them so much and not looking forward to saying goodbye to them in less than 2 weeks 🙁 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?
The most challenging part of the week was my (real) mom haha…she got surgery on her acl this week and it was hard not being there for her and my family. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.
A wow moment was the flat was a mess with all of [my host family’s daughter’s] toys and when the family was gone in the morning I cleaned them all up for them really fast and they came home so surprised. It’s the little things that I want to do to show them that I appreciate their hospitality and love. 

Tell us about your week! 
The weeks just keep going by so fast! Before I know it I will be back in America and that is so sad 🙁 I’ve loved this experience so much and couldn’t have asked for a better time here in Italy! This weekend my friend Christina and I went to Matera. It was absolutely breath taking. There were parts of Wonder Woman and passion of the Christ filmed there. It really does look like Jerusalem. So amazing! We spent a night in an awesome hostel and walked around the streets of the old town of Matera and were in awe with the spectacular view! 

 

Then we came back to Martina Franca and I showed my friend around my town and she got to meet my family. She loved them just as much as I do after meeting them once. They treated her like family and we walked the main square together and then they went back home and we went to go get some dinner. There is a pizza restaurant right under our flat and there’s a waiter there that I guess has a little crush on me. 

 

[My host mom] always has to translate for me but she says that he is absolutely in love with me…which is funny because I’ve never talked to him hah! Just “Ciao”…anyways we went to his restaurant that he works at and my friend was saying that he was looking at our table and coming over. Then he pulls up a chair and take a selfie with us and writes his number down for me! Then he asked his friend to come over and he spoke English so he could translate for us and he asked if they could take us out for gelato. So we went on a little double date with two Italian boys haha! Such a funny experience! It was a memorable time for sure!