Buongiorno, buonasera, buonanotte, greetings to you in your time zone! I’m in Italy, currently in the mountains of Cortina d’Ampezzo on vacation, although residing mostly in the Forte dei Marmi in the Tuscan region of Italy. As a refresher, I am teaching English as an au pair to an Italian family with two girls aged 8 & 9.

I’ve been in Italy since July 9th, after I enjoyed short 3 weeks in the USA following my semester abroad in Spain. Since I’ve been in Italy, my usual days consist of taking the girls to the beach and doing English homework with them. Although I am the teacher here, I have also been challenging myself and learning new things along the way as well. I have a little less than a month left here, but I felt compelled to compile my computations thus far.

Here are my takeaways:

• It’s imperative to create a daily routine in order to make each day “yours.”
• Start with a morning routine and have several daily goals each day; therefore, no matter what life throws at you- you made the most out of your day with what you can control.
• People make experiences valuable, not money, things, or did I say money?
• As a new chapter begins, create goals and acknowledge them everyday.
• You have to know a language to know the culture.
  • You might also have to know the wine to know the culture as well 😉
• Meditation is overlooked by a majority of the population but helps to immediately calm the hurricanes in the ocean of a mind we inherently have as humans.
• Family means different things to different people & experiencing multiple cultures and aspects of family life in England, Spain, and now Italy has made me conscious of the differences and so appreciative of mine.
• Move away from empathy to action. Feeling sorry does nothing. Either do something to help or move on.
• Disregard what others think of you. After 8 internships and 3 jobs throughout college everyone expected me to land a great job soon after graduation.  I’m sure being an au pair in Italy was not what my parents wanted to hear when I told them my plans but I knew it was the next step I needed to take. 
• No  one’s going to choose or chase your dreams for you. 
• Pensaba que yo olvidaría mi español pero no fue posible porque practico mi español con las personas quien no puede hablar en inglés aqui, y si olvidé mi español no podría haber hecho esos amigos. ** I was thinking I would forget my Spanish living in Italy, but it was not possible because I could practice my Spanish with people who didn’t speak English, and if I had forgotten my Spanish I wouldn’t have been able to make those friends.**
• When an Italian shows you how to cook pasta – take notes.
• Curiosity actually saved the cat.

Flash forward in time to October and I am finally home for good after living 10 long months abroad. I just finished “revising” this even though it didn’t need much. So another thing I learned- if you’re a writer don’t be afraid to publish your writings – your work is likely better than you imagine it to be.

Three months in Italy taught me many things: to finish what I started, to stick to a daily routine, to normalize eating pasta as an appetizer, to travel as a minimalist, how to help children love learning, how to surf (key word here is “how,” not the ability lol), the correct color of pistachio ice cream, the ability to communicate in a third language, & an absurd amount of new card games.

Out of all my memories from Italy, my favorites come from the friendships I made. Although I spent most of my time at the house working, I made some unforgettable memories with amazing people in places I’d never even dreamt of going. Teaching English in Italy was nothing at all how I expected it could be, but so much more than I thought I’d get out of it.

So many places such little time. Yes, I basically lived out of my suitcase. Here’s the list of the cities I lived in Italy:

• Forte dei Marmi – posh beach town in Tuscany
• Bassano del Grappa – small town in northern region of Veneto known for its wooden bridge
• Cortina d’Ampezzo – ski resort town in the Dolomites
• Baja Sardinia – posh beach town on northern side of the island of Sardinia
• Brescia – city in region of Lombardy near Milan

Alla prossima volta miei amori, salute! Un bacio, ciao!