Each individual day of this trip was impossibly long, but looking back after our final full day in Italy really puts into perspective the months and months of planning and preparation and paperwork even for just two very short yet very rewarding weeks.
After an especially nasty and cozy ride on public transportation, we arrived to our final media visit where all 30-something girls awaited the dream we remember all too well from our teenage years:
Hearst Magazines Italia. Doesn’t ring a bell? How about Cosmopolitan? Marie Claire? Elle? Esquire? Yeah, those ones. I already know what you’re going to ask. Yes, it is pretty darn close to The Devil Wears Prada.
This tour was particularly great because, like Rai, it wasn’t just a lecture. After a short introduction and presentation, we got to get up and tour around some of the publications in the building and speak with staff. Senior Editor of Marie Claire Antonio Mancinelli (who, might I add, was dressed to the nines, naturally,) showed us around that magazine.
Marie Claire isn’t one that I follow, but I loved getting the chance to see how the production of a magazine compares and contrasts to a newspaper. On one hand, they buy themselves a little more time to work on an issue given they’re doing so two months in advance. The downside is they basically have to predict the future of the fashion world two months in advance in order to stay new and relevant.
We’d later tour Cosmopolitan Italia and then collectively have a heart attack meeting its editor-in-chief, who was the most welcoming and sweetest woman might I add.
Everyone there was welcoming actually. They loved their jobs, even on the days with long hours. They were happy to have us and proud to show us what they do. They kept encouraging how the always shoot for a happy and uplifting environment not only for the readers, but also for those putting the magazine together. What struck everyone, though, is the absolute girl power we encountered within these women being the decision-makers, the standard, and simultaneously the past, present, and the future of such powerhouse publications.
Sorry Josh.
We rode the high of Hearst and Milan by spending our free afternoon shopping, which prompted me to buy a shirt way out of my comfort zone that I ended up wearing to dinner with a skirt I got in Florence, also out of my comfort zone. We’ll come back to that.
The farewell dinner was by far the best meal we had on the trip. See photos so we can all cry at what a beautiful world we live in with food so delicious.
I’ve written in several of these blogs that this trip hasn’t felt real. “I can’t believe I’m seeing this with my own eyes.” “I can’t believe it actually exists.” “I can’t believe we’re here.” It was at dinner that reality finally hit me, and it was the solemness of goodbye that pushed reality my way. I processed it one by one.
You’re thousands of miles away from home; and entire ocean away. You’re in a strange country surrounded by strange people speaking strange words. You’re enjoying the best food you’ve ever tasted wearing an outfit you’d never dream of having on your back. You look up and watch the clouds drift through the Milan sky as you watch the sun go down on the other side of the world.
And best of all, you’re surrounded by some of the best people, your most best friends and professors, in this big, beautiful world filled with unbelievable sights and one-of-a-kind experiences, made unique by the stories behind them.
It felt like a movie. Things like tonight only happen in movies. And trips like these just don’t happen.
But it did, thanks to a hundred different people doing a hundred different things for a hundred-something 
days, probably longer, just to make this possible. And it all put us here, a hundred crossroads later
reflecting on the trip of a lifetime that made us into newer people having seen the sun go down on the other side of the world.
And to think, for the majority of our class, this was only our first time abroad. It’s only the beginning, and there’s so much more to see.
Andiamo.