Another early wake-up after a night at Collone... NO FUN! We met at the Cadorna station with the entire Operations Management class to take a field trip to Campari and the Italian outlets. About an hour trip, we arrived at Campari, where no pictures were allowed to be taken and once again, we had to suit up in plastic gear. This time, however, our cute hair nets had a little conductors flap on the front...so fashionable! After watching a presentation on the company's quality control on their products, we were taken to the production facilities, whose factory took up a couple of acres. We passed through a hallway decorated in old Campari advertisements, which were classy, fun, and trendy. Many featured Jessica Alba, looking absolutely gorgeous in every picture. The employees of Campari call themselves "Camparistas," symbolizing that they are a family. For such huge facilities, they only employed about 87 people because so much of the process is automated. In the production facilities, the coolest was the bottling of their soda in triangular glass containers, because they flipped half the sodas into the case for better fitting. Campari also produces Skyy vodka and a few other liquors, for a total of 9 liquids they produce. Next we went down into the factory basement, which contained huge metal cylinders for the production of wine. The pressure of the containers is extremely important, yet it is controlled electronically by somebody outside the premises. These tours are a bit hard to understand with the tour guides' strong accents!
Next, we went to lunch on the bus, and the bus driver drove us by the restaurant twice..we were less than impressed. Finally we got to the restaurant, whose sign labelled it a cafeteria. We were not expecting the best food, but going in, we were wrong! Sitting with Alyssa, Mrs. Donno, Michelle, Shannen, and Stephanie, we got the two biggest and best plates of bread in the world, which we finished all too fast. It was like breadsticks cut in small squares. We got to pick from a short list of choices for our meals. I ordered a thick pasta topped with asparagus and tomatoes, so yummy! The next course for me was thin cut rare steak with a side of potatoes. Of course, I finished the meal with my usual latte macchiato. During lunch, we finally figured out that Nikki had been controlling Stephanie's Instagram and leaving all the creepy comments. At least that was relieving. We hopped back on the bus, and the driver once again got lost on the way to the outlets. Getting to the outlets, I hate to admit that I was less than thrilled. I was exhausted, bus sick, nauseous, and this was our hottest day of Italy so far. And so much for "outlets.". These were the highest prices I have ever seen!! Given, most of the stores were very high end brands, such as Gucci, Burberry, Fendi, Armani, and Louis Vuitton. The most in my price range was Michael Kors, where I found a gorgeous brown satchel, but I couldn't bring myself to spend €110 when I knew I'd be going to Switzerland this coming weekend! Alyssa decided to buy the satchel in brown though. I wandered the outlets with her and Michelle most of the day. We spotted Chris and Nikki in a children's shoe store with which they defended themselves saying it was the coldest store in the whole outdoor outlets strip.
The bus ride back with Nick and David was pretty enjoyably entertaining, of course involving Tommy too. Todd was obviously passed out asleep from the night before.
Getting home, I made my usual pesto penne for dinner, and we decided to finally plan for Switzerland! After about three hours of planning and finding hotels, trains, talking with the bike company, and organizing between people, we were ready to book! At the last second, I decided to check the weather, which was supposed to be awful. UGHH!!! We were so upset, and at that point, we were too frustrated to even care to organize something else. Per usual, Alyssa and I did all the research which led to nothing! Karina has already been lots of places in Europe, and is pretty picky about where she wants to travel. Already late in the night, we fooled around playing the Sound of Music soundtrack and the top 100 worst songs of all time. Somehow, we managed to have a great time messing around. As of now, we are planning on doing a weekend day trip to the Dolomites, Lake Maggiore, Geneva, or Lake Como. Who knows!! I contacted the other group of kids who wanted to go to Switzerland and told them about the weather. They decided on going to Cinque Terre. I wish they had just come with us last weekend!