The final day of the trip ended today with the highly anticipated visit to Hearst Italia. The communication group met in the conference room with Eleonora De Franceschi and Giulia Giacomuzzo, who both have jobs in advertising at Hearst. Lisa Mancine is the fashion editor at Cosmopolitan and she had a lot of interesting things to say about how she decided the latest fashion trends and her daily life. Antonio Mancinelli is the senior editor for Marie Claire, and I thought he was funny. I liked his look on the fashion world. My favorite thing he said was “fashion is a mirror of society.”
We toured the Maria Claire with Antonio and they introduced us to pretty much everyone on the floor. I could tell that they were excited to have us there because they wanted us to meet as many people as possible and be able to ask our own questions.
Then they gave us a tour of the Cosmopolitan Floor with the beauty product room that was my version of heaven. We met with the Editor and Chief of Cosmopolitan and so many other cool people. I could have spent an entire day there and still wouldn’t want to leave.
After the visit, for our final bit of free time, a number of us decided to go back to the Duomo for shopping and lunch. We took the tram and then did some shopping. I didn’t find much because it was either not exactly what I wanted or it was completely out of my price range. Taylor and I went back to Luini’s for lunch and they actually had a vegan option that she could eat. I stuck to the ham and cheese because it was so good the first time. I just felt that needed to get it one last time before saying goodbye to Italy.
All of us had to meet in the lobby at 6:30 to go over some things for the trip home and talk about our favorite moments from Italy. I’m not even going to try to pick one because every day of this trip has been the best day of my life.
For dinner, Serena walked us to the restaurant pretty close to the hotel where we had an amazing dinner with antipasto, bread, ravioli, steak, chocolate cake, and champagne. This is the night that Serena became one of my new favorite people. I was telling her the stories of my embarrassing moments in Italy and it she seemed to be having the time of her life. I love meeting new people and sharing those moments when you laugh so hard you cry. It was a night I don’t plan on forgetting.
I came back to finish packing my suitcase. It’s an early wake-up call so we can leave by 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. I don’t want to leave.