As sad as I am to write this final blog post, I am even more grateful to be able to share my CIMBA experience with my friends, family, and anyone that has been reading these blogs. Although my current writing location, in Iowa, is not as captivating as a café in Paderno del Grappa or on the train coming home from Rome, I am still enjoying the opportunity to reminisce on the four weeks I spent in the program. In this post, I will share the contents of the last week of the program along with my final takeaways.
At the start of week four, we attended an etiquette seminar on Monday in preparation for the gourmet dinner on Tuesday. At the seminar, we took a small pre-quiz to test our current knowledge of dinner etiquette and manners. Hilariously, my mom made me take an etiquette class when I was eight years old, so I went into the pre-quiz with extreme confidence. Needless to say, my eight-year-old memory did not lead me to success in this pre-quiz. However, after the seminar, I was looking forward to putting my new knowledge to the test the following evening at the formal dinner. That next evening, we got out of classes and rushed to get ready for the dinner which ended up being one of my favorite parts of the program. I loved being able to see all the friends I had made during the program all in one spot where we could talk and enjoy good wine. Our dinner consisted of five courses including the most delicious dessert I’d ever eaten. We started the evening off with a vegetable risotto, then a gnocchi dish, followed by a beef bites, roasted potatoes, and finally tiramisu. I would put this evening at the top of the list because the company was wonderful as well as the food. This dinner made us all sentimental, as we realized we were reaching the end of the program and it had gone by way faster than we had anticipated.
After the gourmet dinner, we spent the rest of the week taking field trips for classes, studying, spending time at the sports bar on campus, and soaking up as much of Paderno del Grappa as we could. My International Marketing class took a trip to a winery, where we were able to observe the marketing strategies that the company used to attract more customers. I loved that we were able to observe marketing in such a unique setting, as Asolo was probably one of the most captivating locations for this type of learning. In addition to International Marketing, my Italy Live class took a trip to a nearby city and we did a scavenger hunt to learn a bit more about the local culture. Following these class trips came finals, and I’m excited to say that all of the studying my friends and I put toward our classes during the week had paid off.
Sadly as finals ended, so did our time at CIMBA, so my roommate and I packed our things and headed to the airport where we, along with the friends we made during the program, parted ways. I met up with my family in Venice and then we were fortunate enough to spend a week in Spain. Our first stop was Barcelona, where we toured the Sagrada Familia and took a bike tour around the city. Then, we ventured to Mallorca and spent the rest of our week relaxing by the water. However, it was here that I discovered that I have an irrational fear of sail boats and I can proudly say I will never go on one again (to clarify- not all boats, just sailboats).
I cannot thank the CIMBA faculty enough for everything they did to ensure that all the students and I had an amazing month. I made countless memories that I will never forget as well as new friendships with people from around the United States that I never would have gotten the chance to meet otherwise. Thank you to everyone for reading my blogs throughout this month and I hope you enjoyed!