Tarquina!

I spent half an hour looking for sea glass. Half an hour combing the beach, taking pictures with friends and soaking up enjoying our day at the beach. I found this beautiful, smooth stone as I looked and I picked it up and put it in pocket, at least keeping it if I found no sea glass. Then my roommate found some, so I kept looking. I finally found a piece and then found two more, making me very happy. I put them in my pocket and all day long carried them with me. I carried them through centuries old tombs, through lectures about Etruscans and while I took more than a few photos of the many cats we saw.

Turns out, our long day of tours turned out to be so much more.

We were woken up at 6 am by a wake up call. Everyone got dressed in the dark, not really wanting to be awake. We grabbed breakfast and all boarded the bus going to Tarquinia, an Etruscan city.

We have been studying the Etruscans in all of our classes recently. We don't know anything about them really from primary sources. Everything we know is from their tombs. So we drove an hour and a half out of the city to Tarquinia. We spent the few few hours going to different tombs there before heading to the museum to see the artifacts pulled out them.

It was very cool to see the paintings in the tomb that told stories about the people.

Next we headed to the beach for our picnic lunch. It was amazing. We got to put our feet in the Tirreno Sea which is part of the Mediterranean sea. It was a perfect day. We walked on the beach, and ate on the cliffs. It was very fun and I liked the break it gave me. It made everything worth it.

We next went tomb raiding for a few hours to see some more impressive tombs. They were so intricate with multiple rooms, beds, pillows even.

This day was amazing. We got to study the history of the area and go to find out more about a new culture. Climbing in all the tombs themselves reminded me of Laura Croft but it also made me think about how they lived. Their familes were buried around them, did different people get different pillows or different beds? I loved trying to figure out potential lives, making up stories to them.

The day at the beach was fabulous. After our week of studying, it was nice to get to relax and enjoy italy. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in classes (like this week in midterms), but it's nice to get a break. We walked into the ocean, along the beach, explored cliffs, ate a picnic and took lots of pictures. It was so calming and was one of those days that reminds you why this is an amazing experience. I loved the beach, the tombs, the history and even the lectures. It left me exhausted and hungry, but was also one of my favorite days since I arrived and I was in the best mood when we came home to Rome.

That smooth rock reminds me that I always keep going. I never settle for anything less. It also reminds me that while some things may be a blessing in disguise. That rock wasn't what I was looking for but I liked it all the same. Now I can say that the rock is the favorite thing from the beach I brought back, even more than my sea glass. How smooth it is reminds me of the smooth stones on the beach and now I carry it with me, reminding me that not everything is as bad as it seems.