Sketches of Sardinia

At 20 years old, the summer before my senior year at Princeton, I stubbornly decided to forgo an internship or any paid work experience and instead chose to WWOOF in Italy for two months. The Mediterranean island of Sardinia beckoned me for some reason, so I spent a month with a couple of hosts. The first host was an older woman who had me stay in a quaint, rustic little cottage on her farm outside of Cagliari. It had an en suite bathroom and books about Marxism lining the wall above the bed, so you know I felt like I'd made the right decision. My host was patient with my combination of rudimentary conversational Italian and youthful gregariousness. She made all of our meals from scratch from locally-grown, organic produce. She made her own hand soap out of lemons, which I found delightful. About a week or so into my stay with her, she told me that she due to obligations requiring her to travel to Cagliari, she didn't think I would be getting a great experience from staying with her…