Hello everyone, Gabe again, here to talk about the skills and takeaways from my experience here in Florence. Looking back on my experience so far, I have grown and learned so much in my time here. First off, I have learned so much about myself. This experience was very out of my comfort zone and there were so many uncertainties involved. Through this experience I have learned to adapt. Whether it be adapting to my physical surroundings or culture around me, Florence has taught me to adjust in uncomfortable situations. Being abroad can also be very stress-inducing. Through my job and all the activities, I was doing I felt like I didn’t have any downtime or time for myself. This was an important lesson for me because I learned how to deal with this stress. Secondly, the most obvious is my communication abilities have improved in this cross-cultural environment. I have had experience in the past speaking Spanish with my family in Spain however this was the first experience as a non-native speaker. I was able to see what ways you can communicate that does not include words. I have relied on my hands and facial expressions many times. It has also helped me with my confidence in my Spanish. Before this experience I spoke fluent Spanish but would be shy in my speaking out of fear of making grammatical errors. Now, I have more confidence when I speak Spanish because I now know that I can communicate way better than I thought. In my internship the hard skills I have learned revolve around marketing and social media. Although I am an accounting student, they have leveraged my video editing skills and I have learned new video editing techniques. I have made multiple videos for their social media content which I am very proud of. Finally, I have had both positive and negative interactions with locals. Most people here are very friendly. They greet you with a smile and really enjoy it when you make an effort to speak Italian. That said, Florence is touristy. Many countries have a bad reputation and frankly many tourists are very annoying. Thus, many people can greet you with a little bit of negativity but this distaste for foreigners is rooted in Italian culture. One experience I had that was very bad was in a taxi on the way to the airport. The prices online for the taxi were around 30 euros and when we got in the taxi he was trying to charge us 60 euros. We decided to leave the taxi because he was trying to scam us and, on our way, out he was saying a lot of Italian words that I am sure were not nice. Nonetheless these bad experiences don’t surpass the kindness I have seen here by Italians. My coworkers are all great and always try to teach me new things and include me in conversations.