There are only three weeks left in Prato and I am already dreading leaving. I am having the absolute best time of my life. We spent another weekend in Prato last week and it was filled with even more relaxation. Last Friday, I took advantage of one of the many free school trips that are offered on the Prato campus. A few classmates and I got to visit a wildlife reservation on the outskirts of the city. It was a lot of fun. There were peacocks just roaming around, as well as owls, turtles, and parrots. We also went into the reptile room and got to pet a snake. It was slightly terrifying (I am not a fan of snakes). After lunch in

the reservation, we ventured over to a World War II deportation museum. At the museum we learned about World War II in the Tuscany region. It was really eye opening to hear another perspective what it was like during World War II in Italy.

Also this week I took a trip to the Da Vinci museum and the Specola museum in Florence with my Art and Science class. The Specola museum is a wax museum and we explored the part of the museum with wax human anatomy. It was crazy to think that people made such intricate wax figures years and years ago. The detail in every single piece was phenomenal. After the wax museum it was on to the Da Vinci museum. It was like a giant playground with all of Leonardo’s inventions except you couldn’t play with everything. There were a few things that we had fun using though. As soon as we entered it looked as if twenty 5-year olds were just set loose in a candy store. We immediately ran and started touching everything we were allowed to. It was probably one of my favorite museums I have visited yet.

I am still volunteering at the local school in Prato. I am going about seven times a week and I love it. I am now helping out in multiple Science and English classes and next week I am even giving a talk about psychology. It takes up a lot of my time but I don’t even notice it. I was even given control of teaching this one science class where I had to make them a test and give them a review session for it. This is something I want to do, and I would only every have the opportunity to volunteer at a school abroad if it wasn’t for the Prato campus being here. Coming here was probably one of the best decisions of my life.