What were you grateful for this week?
Maps! Google Maps and paper maps. I’ve been using both. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?
Trying to find my way around Turin on my own. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.
Just keeping the kitchen clean.  

Tell us about your week! 
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been living in Italy for an entire month! It’s so surreal. I’m absolutely loving it, though.

This last week was pretty laid back. I enjoyed it. [My host family daughter] and I have been going to the park a lot. The weather is perfect for it! She loves playing on the swings that most. She’s learning more and more English every day! 

 

Sometimes I feel like she isn’t understanding anything I’m saying, but then she’ll randomly say something in English, and it makes me feel better. She probably is understanding more than I think she is. I’ve been trying to teach her to sing Ring-Around-The-Rosy. She can sing most of it! It’s so cute. 

I also visited Turin again this week. I went to the Egyptian Museum. It’s not something I expected to find in Italy, but it was an impressive collection! I read somewhere that’s it’s one of the largest collections of Egyptian artifacts outside of Egypt. The museum was huge; I kept expecting each room to be the last, but it kept going and going. I loved it. It is FOR SURE worth the €15 if you’re ever in Turin.

 

After the museum I went to try and find lunch and got extremely lost. I’ve never been so lost in my whole life (and getting lost is honestly one of my best talents; I get lost in Idaho where I’ve lived for most of my life). Google Maps came in pretty handy, except for when I’d follow the directions exactly and it would tell me I was going the wrong way. Then my paper map became helpful! But it’s hard because a lot of the roads aren’t labeled adequately. Or I’m looking in the wrong places for the signs. Who can say. I was pretty lost for quite awhile, but I survived! 

 

I think one of highlights of my week was getting gelato at a shop in Alba. It’s the best I’ve had since being here. It was pistachio flavored, and oh boy was it incredible. I’m for sure going back!