After an exciting month in Okotoks, an Italian guest is headed back to Europe with a local in tow.
Giorgia Giacobazzi, hailing from the town of Pavullo nel Frignano, spent a month in Okotoks as a guest in the home of fellow Rotary Club youth member Elizabeth La Croix. Now, the two are headed to Giacobazzi's home back in Italy as part of an international youth exchange.
"It's a really nice country for me," said 17-year-old Giacobazzi on her first time experiencing Canada. "There is a lot of nature, good people and good food too."
Canadian cuisine, including Blizzards, corn on the cob and poutine, was one of many highlights of the Italian's time in the country, although she found herself missing the higher-quality pasta available back home.
Giacobazzi also got to visit many Alberta destinations, including Edmonton, Medicine Hat and the world-famous Waterton and Banff national parks.
"A lot of animals," said Giacobazzi of the highlights of her two trips to Banff, which she said was her favourite part of the province. "Deer, bears, gophers, sheep, a fox."
She also got to experience the Calgary Stampede. She found some aspects somewhat jarring, as she was in the audience when an animal was euthanized during a steer wrestling event on July 8, but found the rodeo and the event's cowboy aesthetic to be exciting overall.
The trip was made possible through the Rotary Club's Short-Term Exchange Program (STEP), which the Okotoks club is participating in for the first time.
Giacobazzi got plenty of memories and experiences to take back home, and now she'll be returning the favour. After spending a month learning about Canadian culture as a guest in La Croix's Okotoks home, La Croix will be staying with Giacobazzi for a month.
"I've always wanted to travel that part of the world," said La Croix. "I'm really excited to see kind of the similarities and differences between our home lives and like our friend lives and just stuff like that."
Having travelled so much during her time in Canada, Giacobazzi will make sure La Croix gets the same treatment in her home country.
"While we're in Italy, we're going to go to Rome and some other big cities," said La Croix. "We're going to go to the seaside and we might even go to France because [Giorga's] dance group is going to have a performance there."
Both youth are eager to remain involved with the Rotary and its numerous exchange programs, through which fellow Rotarian Ella Day recently returned from a 10-month stay in the Netherlands.
There are over 46,000 Rotary Clubs worldwide, with 1.4 million members across the globe.
The Rotary Club of Okotoks is involved in many other community programs and projects domestically, such as its youth leadership opportunities and the upcoming construction of a wheelchair-accessible swing set at Bill Robertson Park this summer.
