What were you grateful for this week?
I was grateful for my host family that has been so welcoming to me. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week? 
The most difficult part of this week by far has been the ~40 hour trip that it took me to get to Milano.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.
Today I went with my host mom to pick up my host brother from school and I surprised him with Starbursts, which he had never tried before. The great moment for me was when my host brother invited his friends and shared the American candy with them. It was very cute. 

Tell us about your week! 
This week has been a rollercoaster. I travelled to Italy by myself with a ton of luggage because I am staying for ~6 months and had to pack for cold and warm weather. I had two layovers that were 9 hours each, one was in New York City and one was in Moscow Russia. I did not enjoy those layovers at all. All in all I was excited to be traveling to Italy, in spite of the fact that it was so physically exhausting. 

 

I have learned a ton in the 3 days that I have been here so far. I came here not knowing any Italian, and I continue to learn more and more Italian every single day. This week I have been reminded of the challenge it is to be in a foreign country surrounded by a language that you do not speak at all.

 

I am lucky that my host family is so familiar with being around and English speaker. One thing that I enjoyed today was teaching my host mom English for the first time. I asked her how she prefers to learn English and she said she prefers to learn it from a book. Thankfully she had the book that she had used with the previous student to learn English. I am actually learning Italian by using her English grammar book. 

 

I am enjoying walking through the city and people-watching in order to see what everyone here is like.