As our last field trip, we went to Trevi to visit an Olive Oil factory. One of the amazing things about this trip is that unlike just spending time traveling, our professors and the staff at Umbra were able to set up these little behind-the-scenes tours in nearby cities that really enhanced our experience. Seeing a high end fashion designer’s workplace, learning a ton about wine as well as going on one of the best tours I can think of, having a speaker come talk to us about Italian business practices, and finally this Olive Oil experience are all very unique experiences that will stay with me – not to mention a good excuse to take a day trip and have a multi-course lunch on the Clemson tab. Though this tour didn’t have the excitement attached to it as the winery did based on the hype, it was still a great trip. In fact, one of our guides even pointed out why oil pales in comparison to wine. For one, it is not as posh to use olive oil as it is to drink wine. We tie olive oil to healthiness, which is true, but in addition to health benefits, social status, wealth, class, and sophistication are all tied additionally to wine. Second, wine is consumed in much higher quantities than olive oil, making product turnover higher. Normally just a dash of olive oil will do, while it is not uncommon for a party to split a few bottles of wine over a single sitting. Thirdly, restaurants view wine as a benefit and olive oil as a cost. They can mark up ordinary bottles of wine up to 400% - as we learned at Lungarotti – but because they do not charge for olive oil, they look for value over quality. So despite similar processes that take either a grape or an olive, grown domestically in similar vineyards, dependant on the quality of the product much more than any sort of production process used to manufacture a final good, there are many additional difficulties to marketing quality olive oil than there are with wine. As a whole, we learned a lot about olive oil, which was very helpful because no one really knew that much about it going in.
Our last few days in Perugia were a surreal experience, at least for me. It was a place that we were all thrown into and adapted to so quickly – called “home” so quickly. The weeks seemed to fly by with all the travel we did; coming in late on Mondays still reliving weekend stories, packing Wednesday nights in order to leave right away on Thursdays. The times we spent in Perugia that weren’t spent in class, getting way too few hours of sleep, running errands, socializing, or preparing family dinners, we tended to spend in the library and labs, trying to catch up with friends from home on Facebook or Skype, blogging, uploading pictures or what have you. Before I realized it, it was time to go and there was so much left unexplored in the city; things that I had written down beforehand to keep me entertained, knowing I had a ton of time to kill, suddenly I had not even bothered trying to go see, and it was time to move on. It’s kind of frustrating, kind of disheartening, but at the same time I really don’t regret the day to the day time I spent in Perugia – I suppose more than anything I am just wishing for more time there to continue to experience everything I wanted to and discover even more. But when you get to that point in discovering a city, it’s more like you’re living there than visiting…hmm, maybe I’ll beg Mauro, Ian, and Rachel for a job at Umbra when I graduate…
By Thursday morning it was time for final exams. All packed, but most definitely not airport ready, we rolled in for our final morning class. Dr. Meyer’s exam went well for me, but it was Dr. Baker’s that really hit home for me. Maybe it was my love for DB, my desire to go into Sports Marketing, or the fact that it was going to be my last study abroad experience in Italy, but I absolutely loved Dr. Baker’s exam. I’ve taken easy exams before, and I’ve felt proud of myself while taking exams that I knew I was nailing, but never before have I legitimately enjoyed taking an exam like I did with this one. Instead of asking us to strictly recall information covered in class or trivially fill out short answer or fill in the blanks, he allowed us to actually use what he taught us in a way that would be practical in a true life application. One of the questions was to explain what tactics we would use to market to fans of different categories, another to decide which elements of competition were the most and least threatening to us as marketers. As I was answering, I kept thinking that this was right down my alley – these were things I could see myself tackling in a future dream job and implementing into actual marketing strategies and promotional campaigns. It was a great sendoff to an absolutely fabulous couple of classes with two great professors.
I turned in my rented phone, which led to an interesting conundrum – being cut off from those you are traveling with. It’s an overplayed cliché that our generation is constantly connected to technology, and that does have its pros and cons, but when it’s a question of being able to coordinate and communicate, I don’t think many would look at that use of modern technology as a bad thing. Often times I daydream at school how different things must have been for the students of yesteryear. Simple things we take for granted like meeting up at a dining hall or the library, finding out where your roommate is when they’re out, or tracking down group members when they don’t show up are all incredibly easy thanks to cell phones – not to mention the fun things like cleverly letting a friend know that you just passed them on the bridge while they were in another world, keeping yourself entertained as you stroll across campus, or pretending you don’t see that one person headed straight for you(admit it, we’ve all done it). All packed, alone in the apartment and watching the clock, I decided to try to track everyone down to make sure we would all make it to the train station in time. Without the ease of a phone, this turned into frantically running around the city – first to school where I said goodbye to Rachel at the desk, but she was the only soul in sight. To Jessica’s apartment, only to be greeted by Katie on her way out who said that J-Byrd had already left. Finally to Laura’s where I found her almost all packed but waiting to get paid back from Milan adventures. Luckily I ran into Jeff on his way out as I ran back up to get my bags, we made it down to train station despite struggling to carry all of our shit across the stone roads and up the hills, and met with everyone on the platform with a solid ten minutes to spare. Just like that, as we pulled out of the station, our time in Perugia was up. I hope to be back at some point in my life, but I couldn’t help but think as we rolled out that this could be the last time my eyes rested on that hilltop that had become so dear to our hearts. Fighting back tears for the first but certainly not the last time, I looked ahead to Roma – big dreams, high expectations, away from the drama, carefree, our last shot at making this trip all we wanted it to be. I know that post will be a lengthy one, with possibly a deep and sentimental one coming after that – I know I want to get all my thoughts down on paper, but I’m not sure if those will make their way to the blogosphere or not – but either way I’m going to cut this post short to just the weekly events. Even though I’m back in the States, there are still stories yet to be told, so stay tuned!
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