Postcards from Italy: The Sweet Side of Entrepreneurship

“Attenzione: il treno arriva ora alla Torino Porta Nuova,” the large pace coach declared as it screeched into the Porto Nuova Coach Station and the 10th and 11th cohorts (myself involved) of the Worldwide Entrepreneurship Knowledge Plan (GEE) took our very first measures into downtown Torino, Italy.

At the time recognised as the middle of Italian film and the home of Nutella, it’s now a hustling and bustling metropolis that mirrors towns like Paris and Prague with pleasure and entrepreneurial possibility. Our walking tour made that at any time so obvious, as Danielle, our tour guideline and University Experiments Abroad Coalition housing coordinator for the Torino software, took us all-around the metropolis. Not only is Torino at the moment the heart of the nationwide guide truthful and a locale for Giro di Italia, a national biking race, but in the coronary heart of the metropolis, Piazza Costello, the leaders of the United Nations had been scheduled to satisfy to explore politics all all through our stay.

Vivid and early the upcoming working day, GEE jumped on a city bus to visit La Fabbrica di Cioccolato, well-known for its mouth watering candies and gianduja, a mixture of hazelnut and chocolate, which was invented in the Piedmont area in 1875. Going for walks into the factory, the sweet smell of churning chocolate and hazelnut carried us in and grabbed our consideration. From the process of turning cacao fruit into chocolate, to branding, licensing, and exporting the mouth watering product or service, the tour gave insight into what it takes to create Italian cioccolato (chocolate). 

Soon after the tour, my classmates and I walked by some regional avenue markets, exactly where the spirit of entrepreneurship was alive and robust. In this article, buyers barter costs with the farmers and fisherman who made their solutions of veggies, cheeses, fish, and cured meats. By bartering, the shoppers and sellers are fundamentally calculating present marketplace worth in true time. Other than food items, just about anything else can be discovered under these tents, from suitcases to sun shades to toys. 

When we bartered for our truthful share of souvenirs and lunch, we headed to the city’s oldest cafe, Al Bicerin, which served its initially cup of caffe in 1763 —13 a long time before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Their signature consume, bicerin, where the cafe receives its name, is a regular Italian mocha-fashion coffee with a few levels: a steamed milk foam, coffee heart, and a liquid chocolate base. Drunk the traditional way, you’re remaining with a foam mustache. With a sentimental toast from college student Sean Stewart, we bought our mustaches on and realized just how lucky we are to have an expertise as amazing as this. Without the need of the support of Lee Business Faculty, the Troesh Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and CSUN student authorities, a global educational experience like this would not be possible. We are so grateful!

With our matching milk mustaches, cohorts 10 and 11 headed to Chiesa della Consolata to see to start with hand one particular of the country’s lots of beautiful church buildings. We ended our day in Piazza Reale, a museum and the castle of the past Italian King, Victor Emmanuel III. As we were surrounded by fits of medieval armor and paintings depicting Italian background, we uncovered of Italian Unification, the church’s influence in Italian culture, and what produced Torino into the metropolis it is these days. 

Now, as I compose this, we are headed to the placing of Romeo and Juliet. Up Next: D’nasia Thompson, a current UNLV superb graduate, will just take you via a working day in Verona, Italy.