Weekend in Paderno

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The past week of my life has involved a formal dinner, basketball conference championship games at 3AM, climbing a mountain, studying, a test, a company tour and packing. Quite a bit of activities for a town of 2000 people.
Ok so last time I left you off, I was getting ready for a formal dinner. The dinner involved several courses. The first course was a cake like pie shaped thing with bread and ham in it, very delicious. Second course was pasta with veggies and a little beef. Third course was chicken, and the desert was orange based cake. It was a lot of fun and tasty.

Last weekend on saturday myself and three other guys, Zach, Matt, and Juan, all climbed Mount Grappa, which is located a few miles away from Paderno del Grappa. The hike to the mountain might have been longer than the hike up. Once we got to the mountain base, it was a struggle. Stopping about every 100 ft to catch breath and drink water. We made it to the top where there was a little snow and a view. The view was cloudy as we picked the second worst day possible to climb the mountain. It was all foggy but you could see some of the mountains around the area. Sunday would have been worst because it was rainy, which is why we chose saturday. Besides the clouds, it was an awesome experience. We had a lot of fun sliding down snow on some of the parts on the way down and scaling cliffs. Don't worry Mom, there were no cliffs involved. Just getting your blood flowing just a bit 😊. The sliding was on a catwalk type part of the trail so it wasn't dangerous by any means and we were sliding because running shoes don't make the best hiking shoes. But in all seriousness it was a fun and active saturday. The adventure took 7 hours from the time we left the gate of school to the time we walked back in.

Wednesday this week everyone at Cimba took a company tour. I landed the lucky 7:55AM departure time, which was the earliest of all the tours. Can't complain though, I am in Italy. The tour consisted of a presentation explaining to us their business process and pieces of their financials. The company was called SIPA. They manufacture plastic bottles for companies large and small, all over the world. In fact, this past fall, they landed huge contracts from both Coke and Pepsi. They consider themselves a small family run private company, yet they have 200mil in turnover each year. They have 6 manufacturing plants from China to Atlanta to Brazil and several others around the world. They seemed to be more customer oriented and help design the bottles to the customers needs, acting as a consultant as well as manufacturer in that aspect. The major bottling companies produce about 1bill in yearly turnover, which limits their ability to care for the small orders, which SIPA prides themselves in being able to accommodate. We saw the plant, everywhere from where they design the bottles, to where they make the molds for the bottles, to where they heat and blow the bottles into their shape. A very cool and educating experience.

Next week is our second travel break, which is a week long. I am going with my three other buddies here to Prague for 3 days, Amsterdam for 3 days, and Paris for 3 days. It should be nice weather but a bit colder than Italy. We will have a fun time and I will let you know how it goes in two weeks. To clear up some questions about my future travel plans after next week, I am planning on going to Palermo the weekend of the 1st of April, but that is not completely set up/for sure yet. The extended travel weekend after that I am going to Sicily, which will be my last trip while in school here. Greece did not work out unfortunately, but Sicily and Palermo should be amazing!! March madness starts tonight so I will spend most of my St. Patrick's afternoon and night watching basketball on the Armed Forces Network. Hope everyone is doing well and I will get back to you in a little over a week. Arriverderci!

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Comments

[Aunt Ann]

viva italia!
Hi Sean, Great blogs! Sounds like your semester abroad has been a wonderful experience. I would have enjoyed climbing Mt. Grappa too! We had a banner year for snow in the rockies and at Mammoth...remember that trip to SLC with deep powder? Devin and I enjoyed about 2 foot of fresh powder there end of February. I was in Vail, A-basin, and Copper March 10th weekend and enjoyed some free cat-boarding too! I was concerned about the tsunami warnings along my beach area, but luckily no damage nearby. Enjoy your upcoming trips, especially Paris!! Love, Aunt Ann