I think I completely lucked out in getting the hosts I did, because there were so many similarities between our families. My experience with my hosts could not have been better. While I definitely had to make an effort to show them that I wanted to be involved in anything they would let me be involved in, they were really inclusive from the start. The beginning was difficult because we were all traveling a lot, but once that settled down in October, we started to get to know each other and fall into a comfortable routine and relationship.

I do have to say that it was isolating, however. In my experience, I lived 40 minutes by foot from the Dickinson Center and about 20/25 minutes by bus. This made it hard to connect with the other students. I also didn’t have classes with any of the non-Italian speaking and lower level Italian students, so I had a limited social life from the Dickinson perspective. That was hard for me to deal with at the beginning, but overall I needed that isolation because it allowed me to find other activities that let me get to know the Bolognesi. For example, I had three different English teaching/babysitting jobs. The isolation also let me put more effort and time into my relationships with my host family members. Towards the end of the semester, I found myself skipping some weekend trips and social events because I really wanted to spend time with my hosts over the weekend. Sunday lunch was usually the highlight of my week!

I would completely live with a host family again. My Italian improved more than I could have hoped for because I had so much one-on-one or one-on-whole-entire-Italian-family time. A lot of weekends, I would speak more Italian than English. In the end, my Italian is a thousand times better than it would have been because I interacted so much less in English than normal.

Overall, living with my host family in Bologna will probably be the highlight of my year abroad, if not my Dickinson career. I was exposed to so much culture, daily life and gained a whole new family. I visited them last weekend for Easter and I felt right at home immediately. For me, the positives outweigh the negatives, but it does take a person who is ready to be strong and independent.