“Sarah, don’t do that! These are ruins!” “It’s okay, they’re already ruined…”

We had a weird day today. It started at studio with the conclusion of our stupid floor plan project. Then we were all supposed to meet at the (one of the) train station to take a little trip to Ostia, a city of ruins about 20 minutes outside Rome. When we got to the train station (which we only knew where it was because of the really inaccurate map our professor drew on the white board), no one was there. We met up with 2 other lost boys from school and waited and waited… We ended up getting on a train to Ostia anyway even though we didn’t really know where everyone would be. Long story short, someone told us to get off at one stop, when really we should have gotten off at a stop earlier so we had to change trains and backtrack a little, wander around the ruins of Ostia until miraculously running into our classmates and professors.

Our assignment was to hang out, explore, and spend some time sketching. Once we had our fill of ruins (since we knew we’d see a lot more where that came from in Herculaneum—which is pretty much Pompeii, the next day), we grabbed a train back into Rome. Hey run-on sentence.

One of the things that is interesting about Rome is the amount of graffiti, just…everywhere. Some of it is actually very cool and colorful, and sometimes I am ALMOST more impressed by that than some of the architecture. ALMOST. My favorites are names usually followed by "Ti Amo." I guess if someone loves someone, it's not official until it's spray painted on the wall of a building, which is actually pretty cool to see.

This is gonna be just a short blog because I want to get this in writing before we leave tomorrow for our Naples, Sorrento, Herculaneum, & Capri trip. Get excited for that blog.

But before I go pack, I wanted to give a gelato update! I’ve been meaning to give a few more names of the flavors I have had :) They are:
Panna Cotta de Caramello
Banana
Arancio cioccolato (chocolate orange!)
After Eight (their version of mint chocolate chip I guess)

Okay, well ciao!!!!