This is going to be a blog about the adventures, challenges, joys, and experiences I am about to have for the next few months as an au pair in Italy. I have truly enjoyed blogging my travels in the past so I hope you all will enjoy staying updated on the experiences I will have in Italy!
As many of you know, I graduated this spring from St. Ben's with a degree in nutrition. This next year I am taking as a gap year of sorts. After not getting matched for a dietetic internship, I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen this year so when the opportunity to go to Italy for a few months and be an au pair sort of landed in my lap- I couldn't help myself from dreaming big. After figuring out the details and finding out that it would work out, I decided to take the plunge into the unknown!
This summer I worked as a canoe instructor at HoneyRock which is a camp in northern Wisconsin. It was a whirlwind of an experience and the transitions have been quick and a little too rushed for my taste. But diving right into camp after graduation was one of the best things in my life. It was just what I needed for personal and spiritual growth and to be in such an uplifting and encouraging community after having some hard goodbyes at school. Anywho- I am transitioning yet again into another big unknown by spending a few months in Italy and I have only a few ideas for what to expect. Somehow I am remaining pretty calm about it all I am just more excited to get there and meet the family I will be staying with.
I am leaving this Friday with my mom, who with quite the sense of adventure herself, jumped at the opportunity to travel with me a bit before I actually head to the city I will be living in. We will be hitting some new places for both of us! On Friday (tomorrow! EEK) we will fly into Dubrovnik, Croatia and spend a few days traveling around in Croatia and make our way up to Austria for a few days and finally, to Merano, Italy which will be where I am stationed for the next few months. It is very close to Austria and is surrounded by mountains, which I am so excited to be able to see and experience for an extended period of time! I will be living with the family I am going to be an au pair for, they have one daughter- Beatrice- who is about 8 years old and the parents are very well educated and have been so kind and welcoming already and I haven't even met them in person yet.
I have one more piece of bad news and one more piece of good news. We will start with the bad per usual. As you may have seen from Facebook, we put our dear Bernie down this week. He was in the advanced stages of heart failure so it was time for him to go and we wanted to make sure we could be there and he would die peacefully. Maybe it sounds dumb to some people who have lost more than a pet in their family, and I realize that this death is much different than a human death. But that doesn't make it any less sad and hard for my family as he was around for 15 years and was a part of many transitions in our family, including marriages, the adoption, people leaving for college etc. Anyways, Bernie was a good one. Makes it hard to believe how fast 15 years can go by!
The last piece of news is a good one. This week I also accepted a job offer to work at HoneyRock in the winter when I return from Italy. I will be part of a program called Ministry Service Team and my role will be with programming. That means I will be doing scheduling for retreats in the winter and making sure the retreat groups get to all of their activities and then hang out with them at some of the activities. Its honestly such a relief to be able to say I have a job when I return from Italy. This year has been such a big question mark for me and to have something like this to look forward to- to return to a beautiful place with beautiful people- is very exciting. The Lord works in mysterious ways, but he sure knows what he is doing as the timing for all of this couldn't have worked out better.
Next post will probably be about my crazy adventure with my mom, which we always seem to have a few good stories after traveling together :) And also about arriving in Italy and meeting the family.
Happy ending of summer to you all, thanks for reading!
A few pics of Bernie just because :)
