Fall 2007
Kristen Dillane & Jackie Heffner
What you can do in one day in ROMA!
For our latest trip as part of the London Program, we
traveled to the ancient city, Rome, November 29 to December 3. After our
plane landed on Thursday, we took a coach to the international company,
ARC Automotive, which is a producer of air bag inflators. We learned
about quality control and Six Sigma applications. On Friday, our group
went to MultiServ, a division of HARSO, which manages recycling and
purifying scrap metal and other operations for Thyssen Krup. After the
tour of the steel plant, we had a delicious lasagna lunch on behalf of
MultiServ and then we toured the beautiful small town of Spoleto. The
next three days we had free to sightsee throughout Rome.
While some people decided to go to Venice and Naples for the day, the rest of us stayed in Rome and had various itineraries. With so many sites to see in Rome, our last day, Monday, was jammed packed because we wanted to make sure we did not miss a thing. We woke up with the dawn and started our day by taking the metro to Vatican City. We made sure to go early in order to avoid the long lines for the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. We only had to wait for a few minutes but while in line we entertained ourselves by bargaining with the umbrella street vendors and trying to sell our umbrellas back to them. After going through intense security checks, we made our way into the Vatican Museum, where there were rooms after rooms of magnificent artwork and tapestries. Once through the maze of the Vatican museum, we ended at the famous Sistine Chapel. The Chapel was smaller than we expected, but the artwork lived up to our expectations. The ceiling and the Last Judgment by Michelangelo were breathtaking.
After doing some shopping at the Vatican and a tradition Italian food store, we continued our journey across Rome to the Spanish Steps. Since there is not easy access to the metro, we walked to the Trevi Fountain. On our way to the fountain, we stopped for a light lunch and had our first “gelato” of the day.
After throwing three coins over our right shoulders
into the fountain, we went to the ancient Roman temple, the Pantheon. It
was neat to see the rain falling through the dome’s opening, known as the
Great Eye. After more tourist shopping, we ate our second round of gelato
and moved on to the Victor Emmanuel (the first king of Italy) monument and
then traveled to the ruins of the Roman Forum and ended at Palatine Hill.
The Palatine Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome, consists of
residential, palace, and temple ruins from BC. We loved thinking about
all the history that has taken place right where we were standing.
On our walk back to the hotel to catch the bus to the airport, we passed the infamous Coliseum and the Arch of Constantine. We were sad to go because Rome was one of our favorite cities of the semester. It was amazing to see all of the ancient sites we have read about and seen on TV … not to mention the great Italian food of pasta, pizza, wine, bread and of course our favorite, gelato. We were proud of how much we accomplished our final day in Rome and can not wait to go back to Italy.
Arrivaderci, Roma!
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