Italy with my host family

Two days ago marked my 7 months in France, which means I only have about 5 months left, I cannot believe how fast it is going. It seems like so long ago I got on the plane to saying goodbye to Australia, but at the same time, doesn't feel like I have already been in France for 7 months. It is almost the end of summer here in Europe, and so far, I have had an awesome summer. After I spent about 2 weeks in the south of France my host mum, and some other family friends (there were 2 kids my age) picked me up and we headed towards Italy. It was a long, hot drive from France to Toscane Italy, which seemed even longer when the air conditioner was broken in 35 degree heat. But the freeway we took was the most amazing road I have ever seen. We went past the coast of France and Italy, passing through Nice, Monte Carlo ect. There were so many mountains and houses right on the coast of the water. After a nine hour car trip we had arrived in Toscane. We stayed in a huge, old house in the country, in Toscane. I was in Italy for two weeks, half of the time we were in Italy we spent travelling around (Rome, Toscane, Perugia, Florence, Siena and other little towns). My favourite town was most likely Florence, the streets were so cool, lively, the houses were all orange and there was a lot to do. The other half of the time we spent relaxing by the pool (which we had at the house), reading, studying a bit of french, watching a bit of the olympics (understanding nothing because it was all in Italian), eating amazing Italian food and lying in the sun. I had a great time away in Italy, I got a lot closer with my host family, improved my french after not speaking any english at all for 2 weeks, and learnt a bit of italian too! We took a different route home, heading through Switzerland and Germany then into France. We were excited to finally get away from the heat we were experiencing in the car (still with no air-con) as we were passing through the Swiss Alps. Little did we know, there was a heat wave in most of Europe at the time, we took the heat with us. It was still 33 degree Switzerland! We stopped over near Strasbourg on the France/German border for the night and then returned to Lille the next day, where it was 38 degrees (the hottest it ever gets in Lille). The heat wave only lasted about 3 days, but it was kind of funny seeing everyone freak out and make such a big deal out it, because it isn't very common in the north of france to have such high temperatures.