In our internship seminar this week, we learned a lot more about Italians, how their society runs and things that are important to their culture.  We learned information about the neighboring cities in Lombardy like Bergamo and Brescia and how they have a little rivalry going.  We also learned a little bit about the foods they ate as well.  I think the majority of our discussion focused on the economy in Italy and how slowly it’s progressing as well as how many micro businesses it’s made up of.  I was not expecting there to be so many, it was around 92-93%.  Additionally, the average salary here is much less than in the US, but we were also reminded that the cost of public universities here is very minimal and healthcare is essentially free as well.  We learned that in the South of Italy, the cost of living tends to be much less when compared to the North, especially Lombardy.  We saw the makeup of Italy’s political parties which is extensive and the hesitancy for nationalism here.  Lastly, we saw some things about American culture that confused Italians like excessive college gear and crying during elections which I thought was a little bit funny.

 

At my internship, my peers and I are actively working on creating a newsletter for the office.  They used to do one, however, they stopped and now we’re on a mission to start it back up again.  We’re trying to revamp it, keeping the format that is required by LG corporations but adding in categories for them to write about.  We’re going to create the one for next month and leave them with our notes and research and ideas so that they can just copy and paste them into templates for the next year.  We want to leave them something that they can easily continue and keep up with after we’re gone.  Some of the sections that we’ve come up with include company updates, self care station, corporate identity, diversity and inclusion and a survey where employees can suggest anything that should be in the next newsletter.  We also have come up with activities for the staff to do regarding D & I and graphics for them to post both in the newsletter and on Linkedin for certain occasions.

 

This section of my blog is going to be strictly about my travels to and from France and my experience in Paris.  Get ready!  Last Thursday, I took a tram to the metro to Milano Centrale to begin my venture to Malpensa Airport around 6.  When I arrived at the airport after about an hour and a half, my flight had been delayed.  We took off around 10:30 and landed by 12.  When I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport, I hopped on this bus that said it went to Paris and ended up in the middle of nowhere.  I was stranded, but luckily found a way to call an Uber using safari (the app had offloaded), my Airbnb was only 25 minutes away.  When I got there, around 2:30, my friends greeted me happily.  They were with Lehigh doing a program in Belgium and we met in Paris.  After what felt like a nap, it was 10am and time to get ready for the day.  

 

We began with a walking tour of Paris which included the Luxembourg Gardens, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, the Panthéon and of course the Eiffel Tower.  The Gardens were my personal favorite and something that I hadn’t heard anything about prior.  I had the freshest strawberries and a delicious cookie butter crepe on the journey as well.  We stopped for lunch at this Italian restaurant and it was actually delicious.  At the Eiffel Tower, we bought tickets and decided to go up to the top and the view was amazing.  After that, we stopped home which was about 40 minutes away and got ready for dinner.  We went to a restaurant called Chez Ming which was a Chinese restaurant that offered 4 course meals for €26 and a view of the Eiffel Tower.  We watched it sparkle right after the 10pm sunset.  Then we walked around for the rest of the night before heading home.  On the second day, we went to an interactive sports museum which was actually pretty cool and the Arc de Triomphe.  We then got dinner and prepared to go out.  We went to different bars on this strip in Paris and it was actually a lot of fun.  Once we got home, I packed, took a two hour nap then headed to Orly airport to come back to Milan.

My friends and I at the Luxembourg Gardens

A picture of the Panthéon

Part of our 4 course meals

The Eiffel Tower glowing after dark