This has been, probably, the best summer I can ever remember. I won’t ignore the difficult moments, but I’ve never been so conscious of my own growth, of self-discovery.

We’ve spent most of our weekends camping on the beaches of the Italian or French Riviera and the weeks in beautiful Torino. It’s not all been so simple, but the bumps in the road have been responsible for much of what is memorable and exciting about it. One weekend we decided to try a two lane road from Nice to Torino. It was recommended by Steve’s Italian teacher and supported by adventuresome me. In a moment of foresight, I asked Steve to make the final decision about going. He committed to it with the words “I choose what you chose.” So we set off. The switchbacks were so steep and dramatic that we rarely got out of first gear. We covered something like 48 kilometers in two and a half hours, using up all our gas in the mean time. We rolled into the first and only village on empty and smiling at our luck to have made it. We found the one gas station…closed. It was Sunday at 2:00 pm. The sign said it would re-open for business on Monday morning at 8 am. We weighed our options. It took all of a half of second to recognize that there weren’t any.

We both had work in the morning. Steve at 7; me at 9. Oh well. We parked the car and found a restaurant for lunch. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the wine in the sun, or possibly just time and reason, but my initial dread of the situation relaxed into comic acceptance. I just felt so bad about having to call into work: “Hi. This is Morgan. We ran out of gas in a village in the South of France and have to stay in this charming one horse town over night. Woe is me.” But seriously, I felt like I was really letting my boss down. Turned out she would have cancelled the class on me at 9:30 the next morning. I called her and after getting that over with, I really relaxed into the situation. We went and got a hotel room and took a nap before sightseeing. The village was really small. It took us five minutes to see it all. There was a dried up river, an old Roman bridge, a church, some shops, and houses. Oh, and there was a closed petrol station. That was about it. With not much else to do, we went for dinner. It was fortunate, I suppose, to get stuck in such a charming and quaint village in the South of France. We walked back to the hotel and spent the rest of the night talking and reading. At 8 the following morning we were at that petrol station. We decided not to continue on to Torino via the same switch back road. The road that took us back to the freeway was 17 kilometers and took us ten minutes. We had to laugh at that. It’s a great memory and good story. A little bump in the road that I’ll remember forever.

So with two more weeks to go in Torino, I’m reflecting on the summer. I’ve loved teaching here. The students have been a major factor in shaping my experience. They are enthusiastic about everything and terribly helpful in answering all of my questions. I enjoy going to work and laughing away a few hours with people I quite admire and respect. I have a handful of friends and know my way around a city that I’ve loved since the beginning. But then again, I am used to saying goodbye to all of that and starting over. I think the part I’ll really miss is my camping partner. I’m just hoping that if I can’t continue life in Torino that at least I can keep on camping.