What were you grateful for this week?
Cars! I walked to the grocery store and it took me 30 min one way, but it takes 4 min driving.

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?
Being physically sick! 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. (A “wow” moment is when you went the extra mile to do something nice for your host family.)
I raked all the leaves!

Tell us about your week! 
This was my first week in italy! When I arrived, the kids showed me around their house and my apartment, complete with balloons and a banner! They were so excited to show me around. We have a cat named Cleo who is incredibly fierce, and likes to drink water from the fishbowl. 

 

This week I walked to the neighboring town to go to the green grocer and was incredibly grateful the cashier knew a little English! I met [my host mom’s] best friend and her daughters, as well as her cousin and her kids. It’s been so fun to meet so many new people! I brought some treats for the kids: [the host daughter] really liked sour patch kids & [the host son] liked my chai tea and peanut granola bars. Apparently, he loved all things peanut butter, but is sad because you can’t get it in italy. [My host mom] showed me their tiny town, which took about 10 minutes on foot. There’s a mini forest right by our house, and I can see it from my kitchen window!

On Friday after school, we drove up to Alagna for the weekend. On the way, we stopped at Decathalon (a sports store). They have a beautiful cabin in Alagna that they just finished renovating in January! The most magical moment was saturday morning. Fifty cows walked right past our house, bells ringing. That night, a hundred goats also walked by! It was incredibly foggy the whole stay, but that made it feel more magical. Before we went home, we hiked for 3 hours in search of mushrooms! The kind we were looking for are very rare and we only found 3, but it was so beautiful that I didn’t mind!