June 13th: First Week of Classes in Rome

---

June 10th: My first day of class in this beautiful class room was Global Business & Social Responsibility with Rainey. All the students felt terrible because we were all falling asleep in his class. He was not offended because he knew we were all jet legged because he was too!
When it was time for lunch we were all searching for an ATM. Our declining balance cards they gave us didn’t work. Luckily I had a back up. My next class was International Operations with Chipperfiled and Maleyeff. They are teaching together. This class is interesting because you see how supply chains work and operated and how to make them more efficient to make more money. Basically I get to receive Masters in OCD!!! I LOVE IT!!! All the students are stressing out because tomorrow we have to present on our financial reports. We are exhausted and have had no time to read! I am in charge of PowerPoint which is a great job for me! Once of our MBA a student caught a bug and vomited on the bus and hasn’t left his apt for two days. I hope I don’t get what he has. Tonight we are cranking out a 30min presentation about IBM! Wish us luck!!! Hopefully I get to try gelato tonight!!!
June 11th: If not for Skype I am not sure where I’ll be. I miss my boyfriend and family terribly but luckily they still get to keep up with skype and facebook! Out presentation of IBM went wonderfully. One of our group members got lost for two hours but showed up to present his part right before we went on! We had one of the best PowerPoint’s I think. I might be biased! Our IMB counterpart was very impressed. We meet with him after the presentation and it looks like he is excited to work with us.
Our group didn’t have time to change before we went on the Roman Empire & Global Business Walking Tour so I had to walk miles in my flats which leave nice blisters. See the pictures for this tour!!! OMG!!! The students are still having trouble staying awake and our legs are not used to all this walking. The Italians must be like, “what are all these limping zombies doing in Rome?”

June 13th: We got to see the Coliseum!!!!! That’s about all I can say about the ancient part of Rome. Please visit if you’re reading this blog. I am sorry I don’t have descriptive words to describe the things I am seeing. Hopefully the pictures will help. I got some great pictures with gladiators. It may have cost a lot but it was so worth it!!! There was a guy parade today and Lady Gaga showed up and played two songs!!!! There were 1 Million people there to attend! This trip just can’t get any better!!!

June 14th: Today we had our first site visit. We visited Globo which is a high end ceramic toilet manufacture. We got to apply directly what we learned to the “real world” business model. We got to travel around and see how the process worked. The place was beautiful but we are not allowed to take pictures. We stopped at a mid evil village and ate a quite lunch by a castle.
We had an apt dinner which was lovely. Again my roommates are the best cooks! I am still playing catch up on my school work but I’ll get there! We had a tour later that day and I got kicked out of a church for having shorts on. I was so embarrassed! The other churches were more accepting and I got some great pictures. Before our first RPI dinner in Rome as a group we stopped at the famous Trevi Fountain. Also last night I got to see my first Russian Ballet!!! The stage was beautiful but the costumes and colors were even better!!! Great pictures below!!!
June 15th: Today we went to our first IBM visit. The facility was spectacular. They had a very futuristic office. We were there from 9-6pm!!! Very long day. Our facilitator Peter is the Director of the Executive Briefing Center (EBC). He is an alumnus of RPI and is thrilled to help us with our summer project. Our problem is to make the EBC inner communication work more efficiently.

June 16th: A week ago today I was in the USA passport office in CT get yelled at by security. Now I had to go to the Chinese Embassy to get my new Visa application. I thought the United States was bad this was worse. There was a language barrier. We got lost and still spent the day sitting around waiting for the process to end. Fortunately we got our VISAs!

---