What were you grateful for this week?I was grateful for the time to get to know my host family a lot better this week. They were all home sick throughout the week and their grandparents came over to help take care of them, and while it was a bummer that everyone was sick, it was nice to be able to spend time with everyone in order to become more comfortable together! 

What was the most challenging part of this week?Also, with everybody being sick everybody’s schedules were thrown off and we were all just trying to figure out what was going on throughout the week, based on who could do what and who was healthy.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.I just spent a lot of time this week caring for those who were sick and was there to care for the son when the mom was sick, beyond normal times. 

Tell us about your week! Another week of adventures, but completely different ones that last week! Everybody was home sick this week, so we spent a lot of time in the apartment, but it was also kind of nice because that meant that we got a lot of time to spend getting to know each other even better! I spent the week playing card games and board games with my host family, and when they were resting their grandma gave me lessons in Italian! ???? 

It was also really fun at the end of the week though, because on Saturday I took my first trip out of Rome! A friend and I took a train down to Sperlonga, and it was beautiful! I believe that it was a greatly needed time away, especially after being in the house all week long. It was kind of chilly, because it’s still technically winter even though it is still beautiful here, but it was so nice. It was a good change of scenery from the busy city! 

It was also just good to spend a day outside walking with a friend, and a friend that was my own age and spoke my own language, as opposed to the ‘friends’ that I spend every day with in my host family. It was really nice! I learned a lot this week about people and the relationships that we have, and it’s been fun to form relationships with people whether they are complete strangers on a train that speak a different language or someone that you meet in a foreign city but they happen to be from where you lived. There are good people everywhere in the world, and you just have to be willing to speak up and talk to them when they’re in front of you!