Student Bloggers

As the semester comes to an end, I found myself restless with how I could spend the last few days in London in an enjoyable way— and, above all, a way that would be meaningful enough for me to remember when I’m back home. I knew that when I would inevitably look back on time away, there would be some things I viewed purely as a learning experience, while others were experiences that I would truly treasure. As someone who is accustomed to closer and smaller communities both at home and at university, UCL was a lot for me to adjust to. And though I was able to meet other students from all over the globe, I knew that I would regret staying in a London library to finish up finals on my last few days in Europe. Plus, I found that my time in London was plenty and well spent exploring a wide range of places. In addition to London, I was able to visit family in Didcot, the shores of Seaford, the Oxford College I studied in this past summer, as well as most of the city of Cambridge. But outside of England, I traveled to the countryside of the Aran Islands, as well as the centers of Amsterdam and Paris.

For the last weekend before the last week of classes at UCL, Jack— my friend from Duke who is studying abroad through the Arcadia SOAS Program— and I decided to go to Rome. We both were captivated by the city’s ancient history and thought that it was the perfect place to end our time abroad. Last semester at Duke, Jack and I actually took our required foreign language requirement together. And though Italian 101 was a great class for both of us, I think the time away from studying the language made us nervous to properly converse with a native Italian speaker. Still, this didn’t stop us from brushing up on our broken Italian knowledge while we waited to arrive in Rome. And with a delayed flight out of London Heathrow on Friday 6 December, we had a lot of time to practice.

We landed at the Rome Fiumicino “Leonardo da Vinci” International Airport a little later than we had expected. This wouldn’t have caused too much trouble otherwise, but we did get past border control close to midnight. With Rome’s public transportation no longer in operation for the night, many individuals were looking to share a taxi service to their hotel. Jack and I shared a taxi with a couple from London, and this made the 40-minute ride into the center of the city a bit more exciting. We had talked about the must-do things in Rome as well as our year so far. Meeting new people while traveling has always been nice, and Jack and I always learn something new from others. But after a good bit of chatter, we finally made it to our hotel. Though our night ended a bit later than planned, we still got the much-needed rest after a few
bumps in our travel day.

All things considered, we had a pretty early start to the day on Saturday. Luckily for us, the Colosseum was only a 15-20 minute walk from our hotel. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day for a stroll around the city. We arrived at the Colosseum at around 10 am. Before even entering, we stood in awe of the structure that has stood for almost 2000 years. The views and the site itself are breathtaking. It’s hard to believe the immense history of the Colosseum, as well as the fact that it has stood through every change we still learn about today. If you plan to visit Rome, the Colosseum is likely to be on your list of sites to see; I want to assure you that it is definitely worth the price of ~30 Euros. Jack and I walked the entirety of the second level of the Colosseum and stayed for two hours.

Our Colosseum tickets allowed us entry into Palatine Hill, which is located right across the street. So, at around 12:15, we entered and began walking around the historic site. Once inside, you get a beautiful view of the entire Colosseum while looking at the Temple of Venus and Rome. From here, we walked the rest of the Roman Forum. While at Palatine Hill, you’ll see ancient remains— holy sites, temples of power, arches, and statues— all of which tell a different story of Rome's significance. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience to walk on the same stones and paths that the Romans did. The weather allowed us to take our time and soak in the rich history that surrounded us. At around 2:30, though, we did almost lose track of time, as we had a time slot for the Pantheon at 3:00. We exited the forum (after taking a lot of photos of course) and made our way.

We made it to our reserved time after a little bit of a scramble, but the Pantheon— like the Colosseum and Palatine Hill— was a self-paced tour. We opted for the audio guide tour, which was worth the additional cost. Though there’s a lot to learn throughout the site, we found the oculus at the very top of the Pantheon to be the most interesting. There is no glass that covers the oculus, which means that it does occasionally rain inside of the Pantheon; however, because of the shape of the dome, not much rain enters if it does rain. Aside from this, the marble floors and draining system prevent the pantheon from being too wet. Jack and I both thought that this fact was the most interesting from our entire day visiting Roman sites. It’s crazy to think about how far the human race has come. When in Rome, it’s hard to ignore all of the intricacies of each large structure or even small statue.

After the Pantheon, we walked around to kill time before our dinner at 6 pm. During this time, we passed by shops and even saw the Trevi Fountain; this time, though, it was going through a lot of construction. Afterward, Jack convinced me to look at a handmade bracelet from a locally-owned boutique close to where we were having dinner. He insisted on gifting it to me because I was too stubborn. As I write this, I look down at the bracelet that reminded my best friend of me while we ventured on one of our favorite trips together.

At this point, it was almost time for dinner. We didn’t really eat much the entire day— our appetites have definitely changed a lot since being in Europe. But we had pasta, and it was worth the wait. The restaurant was nice and not too busy with other tourists. The food was great, and we ended up taking some back to our hotel to enjoy while we tuned into the college football playoffs. During this time, we also found out that our flight for the next day back into London had been canceled due to storms. Before calling it a night, we had made arrangements for a new hotel closer to the airport and adjusted our plans for the next day.

Sunday, we slept in and planned to take a slower morning. We left our bags with the hotel concierge and went to a breakfast place nearby. We initially had trouble finding open restaurants, as it was 8 December. The 8th of December is a public, Catholic holiday in Rome called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Nevertheless, we were able to find things to do throughout the day. However, we found ourselves caught in the middle of some morning showers. In an attempt to stay dry, we made our way to the Altare della Patria. We saw the eternal flame in the tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier before walking to the higher levels. After some time at the top, the rain eventually stopped, and we saw the double rainbow that remained. The view was beautiful, and because there was no more expected rain for the next few hours, Jack and I had decided to walk towards a lunch place a little bit of a walk away. For lunch, we went to a very popular spot among locals and had pizza. Our waiter and the restaurant itself were lovely. Everything was delicious and worth the walk.

From here, we were situated closer to the Vatican. We walked into the city and into St. Peter’s Basilica. It was beautiful, and though neither Jack or I were very religious, it meant a lot to see the holy site on this day. We walked around the large building and admired every detail we could. I think of everything we saw on our trip, St. Peter’s was both of our favorites. We almost didn’t want to leave— due to the site itself and because it began to rain again— but we had an early flight out of Rome Fiumicino the next morning. So, for the next ~2 hours, we took the metro to get back to our previous hotel to retrieve our things, accidentally took the wrong line, stopped to get dinner to go, then finally got back on track towards the airport. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn and eased into our room after another long day filled with new experiences. We ate our dinner at our hotel while watching another win for Duke men’s basketball (we always find a way to catch the games even with the 5 hour time differences).

In the morning, we checked out at around 6 am and were at our gate at around 7 am. And after another delay, we were soon in London with officially less than a week left in the city. Despite the hiccups along the way, Jack and I had a great time exploring a city we had previously studied. And now, we are both back home in Nashville still reminiscing about Rome, while also looking forward to our respective Italian language class in the spring.