Catching Trains with Friends!

This past weekend, I most definitely overused the trains. Since my apartment is a little far from the IES Abroad center, I have to take public transit to school everyday. Because of this, most people living in my apartment got unlimited monthly train passes. These passes have, thankfully, given me the freedom to go wherever I please when it comes to Rome. 

So, on our first Friday off of class, my friend Margot and I decided to do some adventuring. A train, metro, and bus later, we were at one of the two skate parks that exist in Rome. When we got there, electronic music was blasting on someone's speaker, with the usual genre of skater boys I recognize from the states. Margot put on her roller skates while I got some shots of her skating on her camcorder. We also spoke to some locals after finding out they spoke english. They were quite friendly, making it a whole vibe!

Later, we got back on the train to get some boba before meeting another friend to search for curly hair products. I wasn't so smart when I packed, deciding to leave my holy-grail conditioner in the U.S. Thankfully, someone on TikTok recommended Acqua & Sapone and Tigota for curly hair products in Rome (Hey, you should follow me on tiktok @tastithrifts). After about thirty minutes of google translating products, I found a moisturizing conditioner and Yordanos found jojoba oil. I will give updates on how they end up working for us;). Later, We got back on the metro to go home, stopping for Pizza for dinner. 

The next day, some friends and I woke up early to leave for Viterbo for the day. It is a short train ride away, not to mention the tickets were only 10 euro. The train ride there was filled with views of rolling hills, and slow towns. I still can’t believe that I’m in Italy. I wonder if it will ever sink in…

We spent the day exploring the little city, getting a taste of somewhere other than Rome. One of our friends in the group had recently met someone from Viterbo, so we met up with him to visit. He served as our tour guide for the day, helping us with our broken italian and making sure we didn’t get lost. 

The town was filled with churches, since it used to be where the Pope was located in the 13th century! In addition to the rich history, I met my first Italian cats, which was very exciting since I have only met Italian dogs so far. There was also a huge field with an extra large man sculpture coming out of the grass (This sounds wild and I have no other way to describe it). We sat there a while, soaking up the sun and laughing about cultural differences between the U.S. and Italy. Our dinner ended up being a large aperitivo; red wine, bread and cheese. Since our train home was at 8pm (strict italian dinner time), we weren't able to sit down for the traditional two course meal. 

Overall, the first real weekend exploring was a success! I think I need to take more photos of my experience to share with anyone reading along. Thanks for reading along!