When I was in eighth grade my class took a trip to Italy. It was a small group and by invitation only, I was one of the lucky ones invited to go. Italy was magic. I fell in love with it almost instantaneously. Paying to use the bathroom was a little weird, and the toilets were... different... but there was so much history to it that it intoxicated me. The hotels we stayed in had quaint charm and the food was so good! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
As amazing as that trip was there was something that I saw in every single city that twisted my stomach. The monuments, that where hundreds of thousands of years old, where covered in graffiti. Why would someone ever disrespect something in that way? I understand graffiti as an art form, one of my very best friends does awesome graffiti work, but she does it on a canvas, not splashed all over the city like some sort of gang right. She doesn't mindlessly tag objects because its wrong. If a city gives artists permission to use a wall for the artwork then that is just amazing, I am all for it. But tagging a piece of history, just to tag it, makes me sick to my stomach. I really cannot fathom why people do it. As much as I want to travel I know I will see this sort of thing everywhere I go, and that is the only part of travel that I do not look forward to. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it was art, but its not. Its just a ton of scribbles writing out a name. Take a picture of yourself next to the monument and then post it online, it will probably stick around and last longer than your disrespectful graffiti.
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