As soon as we returned from Spring Break, we moved into our palace! Sounds ridiculous but it’s true. We had been staying in a hotel in Ariccia before the break while the Chigi palace was preparing our incredible new “apartment/dorm”, I guess you could call it. Imagine a Real World episode and the places they stay. We are nestled into the basement of the Chigi Palace, which is an honor in itself. The museum has so many million dollar relics and paintings that the fact that they let use live, cook, shower, etc… under all of it is wonderful.
The highlight for me has been having a kitchen. Our group plans out different meals, splits up the price, make weekly trips to the grocery store (up a MASSIVE hill!) and cook almost every night. Of course we have to pay visits to our favorite Ariccia restaurants every now and then, but being able to cook has been so helpful. It saves the money and has been fun just to hang out and add a new aspect to our group dynamics.
There are still a few kinks being worked out. There is no internet or landline. We were told we would get it the first week we got back from break, but that hasn’t happened yet and we’ve been informed it probably won’t happen before we come home. As much as a pain as it has been, our group has had all that time we usually would spend online getting to hang out, cook for each other, give massages and play card games. We’ve gotten a lot closer in the past 2 weeks than the first half of the trip combined! I’ve loved it! And the palace is in the center of Ariccia so we can literally roll out and have the Irish pub across the street, the local fraschetta a stone’s throw away and just a 2 minute walk to the best gelato place in the world. Not a bad setup. Sooo I can’t complain about the internet 
And we can get it in random spots if we sit outside the palace. Let’s just hope it’s not raining or the old Italian men aren’t smoking their cigars…
This past week we’ve had random field trips and some class but mostly just preparing for our week-long class trip to Milan then Easter break. We visited caves in Frassassi that were incredible! I’m not sure it was worth the 4 hour drive there and back for a 1 hour visit to a cave on a rainy day, but still, a neat sight to see.
We went to the World Food Program headquarters in Rome on Thursday. It’s the largest humanitarian organization in the world (I won’t even get into all the statistics and logistics, but it is absolutely mindblowing the amount of people they feed every day). We met with people from all over the world, talking about their role in the program and how everything works. We are holding a European Hunger Summit our last week here where our group is in charge of registration, handing out food, etc… to some big time names that have donated money! Pretty cool… Auburn is the first and only (as of now) university to unite with the WFP to spread awareness and recruit volunteers.
I was blown away at such a massive organization giving so much to the world without having a Christian (much less religious) standpoint. I’m not ignorant- I know people still have hearts even if they don’t have a relationship with Christ, but their motivation is so strong to save the world. I journaled about our visit when I got home and was amazed how God works even in people that don’t know they are being used. God still has ways to reach his children, love on them, even through people who may not personally know the Lord themselves. It would be incredible to be part of an organization like that. Being able to work with these people from 80 countries around the world, travel to feed those who have absolutely no food, and having a voice exposing the real reason human nature is motivated to help these people. Anyways, there’s my theological thoughts for the day
We’re heading to Milan on Monday to Thursday as a class- going, going, going meeting with designers, fashion trend-setters, seeing “The Last Supper”. Thursday through Saturday, me and 6 other girls are going back to Florence. We LOVED it there and sadly it rained most of our field trip week so we decided we would go back now that it’s warm and sunny- eat more Coffee Crunch gelato We’ll be back in Rome for Easter- going to the Vatican City to see the pope! More on all of these adventures later…
