euro-fourth of July.

I haven’t had a whole lot of motivation to write any blog posts lately even though we’ve done some cool things this week… I dunno, I’m just forcing myself to do it now before I get too much stuff and it just gets overwhelming. Haha

Campus time was interesting this week because Wednesday was Republic Day, an Italian holiday celebrating the birth of the republic and fall of fascism in Italy. So essentially we celebrated Euro-Fourth of July. Anyways, everything was closed, including the universities, which was kind of a bummer for us because we wanted to meet up with friends. None of the students on summer project have cell phones, so we’ve been doing a lot of communication with Italian friends over facebook. Unfortunately, all the places we get internet near our hostel were also closed for the holiday so we missed out on an invitation to hang out at a park with some friends we met on campus. That was a real bummer, but otherwise it was a really relaxed day. A lot of our friends left Rome for the weekend though because of the holiday, so it was a little sad we didn’t get to hang out with them at all.

We did have some great conversations this week though. My friends Melanie, Ben, and I have been hanging out with a few of the same people almost every day we go on campus, and I got to have a really awesome conversation with my friend Giovanni about everything from the existence of God to relative morality to the role of the individual in world change. It’s so great to be in a culture where people are willing to talk about deep topics without feeling awkward or getting offended. Plus its so challenging for me to really think through what I believe and be encouraged when it really does all fit together. Even though we did not agree, they still want to hang out with us. It’s so different than in America. I really can’t stress how friendly and relational Italian culture is… I absolutely love it.

Two really fun things we did this week was go to Tivoli and the beach. Tivoli is this beautiful beautiful little city in the countryside of Italy. It took about an hour by train to get there, and we spent the day there as a project. I forgot my camera and I am soooo mad because it was absolutely gorgeous. Tivoli is specifically famous for some of its beautiful gardens at Villa d’Este, and we spent most of the day there. I also went shopping there, and when I tried on a summer pantsuit as a joke, I ended up buying it! It actually looks very cute and its definitely really Euro. Hopefully they’ll catch on in the US so I won’t look too funny wearing it there.

Rome is only about an hour from the beach by train, and we went to a paaacked public beach. It was supposed to be a fun thing to invite new Italian friends to, but our friends were either off traveling France or at home in the country for the weekend or sick. :[ It was a blast anyways though! It was beautiful out! There were all these ridiculous claims going around that the sun was somehow stronger there and we were all going to get burnt so I put on 8 spf… which is way more than I ever put on. I didn’t burn at all, so if I go again, I will be trying to find at least some 6 spf… haha. I spent most of my time laying out but the sea was warm enough to get in too. Davide, a student at Roma Tre that became a Christian last year, was hanging out with us for the day and he threw me in, so I didn’t really have a choice. We hit a few people with Frisbees and footballs and soccer balls and volley balls in the water throughout the day. We’re definitely your quintessential loud Americans, especially when we travel in a big group. Random fact about the beach: soliciting is definitely allowed. Every five minutes in the very least some gypsy guys would come up and offer everything from henna tattoos to towels to sunglasses to necklaces to bathing suits. The last one really puzzled some of us… call me crazy, but most people show up to the beach with bathing suit already acquired.

So even though we did not get to do a whole lot with Italians this week because of the holiday, God has been teaching me so much about communication and friendships and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was our theme this week, and I wish I could just post pages from my journal without making this blog too super personal to show everyone some of the cool little situations God has been using to make me live through his power instead of my power. One little nugget that I really liked from one of the teaching times we’ve had this week is thinking of the fruit of the spirit not as multiple, separate attributes, but as one fruit. So if maybe I’m doing awesome at loving people, being patient with people, so on and so forth, and I’m not having self-control, I’m not walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time it’s so encouraging that all those things are not things that I have to do by gritting my teeth and trying harder to be good, but because God can do all those things through me.

Anyways, that’s just a little snippet of what we’ve been talking about a lot this week. I’m currently experiencing a miracle in our hostel, which has not had wi-fi this entire trip until magically right now. So I’m going to stop writing now and take advantage of it while it lasts.

I’m leaving that ending only because I find it so ironic that I pressed “post” like three seconds after writing that and the internet stopped working.