I got off my flight in Bari around 8 PM on November 27th, 2017. Gerardo, my soon-to-be host dad, texted me saying he was waiting outside, but the kids were already asleep at home. My heart started to flutter with excitement. Gerardo, his wife Angela, their three kids and I had been video chatting for three months leading up to this moment, this moment when I would join their family as an au pair for the winter.

I was 25, in the middle of pursuing some half-baked musical aspirations in Los Angeles, when I’d decided I needed to pull myself out of my routines and reconnect with Italy, even just for a few months, to immerse myself in the language and culture I missed so since I had studied abroad in Florence five years prior.