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7:30 am wake up call was not exactly ideal after getting home at 4 am, but in Italy a lack of sleep does not seem to phase me! We grabbed breakfast at the hotel. The restaurant roof was the bottom of the coy pond outside, which was pretty cool. We hopped on the bus, and started our long day of travels. We stopped for a group lunch in Bologna.. Can I even fit more food in my stomach?! We were a bit rushed, so one of my courses did not come out, but I still had plenty to eat! Christian and I split the lasagna and spaghetti with meat sauce, both of which were homemade, and the world-famous foods of Bologna. Although both were delicious, the lasagna was unreal! I decided to try tuna for the first time, ordering a salad with tuna, cheese squares, shredded carrots, pinto beans, and tomato topped with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. It was nice to have a light course for once! Right down the road, we arrived at Lamborghini for our tour. Since it is their fiftieth anniversary, we were one of very few groups to be able to tour the facilities, thanks to Lucas's constant pestering of his Lamborghini contacts! We started by touring the Lamborghini Museum, featuring dozens of cars throughout the company's history. They were incredible! From hot pink sports cars to bat mobiles to safari/jeep looking vehicles, the history of the company came through in the design of each vehicle. Next, we split into groups to your the production line. Although our tour guide had a strong accent, I managed to understand some of what she said. The factory only produces two models of cars each year, totaling about 2000 per year. Each day, the goal of the facility is to produce about ten cars, five of each model. They have a running tab on a big screen of how many cars have been completed that day. What surprised me the most was how much human work and lack of robotic machinery is used to make the cars. It became evident why they are as expensive as they are! It takes about five hours to piece together the engine for the vehicles, as the engine moves down an assembly line of educated workers to put everything together. My favorite part of the process was the leather for the interior. With color choices ranging from multiple shades of blacks to red to lime green, the leather is stretched out on a contraption, where any slightest imperfection or stretch mark is noted with a white marker. This leather is then laid in a huge machine which lasers mark where the leather is to be cut for the seats, around the imperfections. It honestly looked like one of those maps of a cow with a million different little parts. Many women were lined up with seeing machines to stitch the cut leather, and the stitching colors were plentiful! As the car is being made, large tracts along the roof help move it from one station to the next. The current model of Lamborghini has the option of a transparent layered window in the back to show off the engine. Although it costs more, if you are spending that much money on a car, you may as well show off the engine as well! I didn't fully understand it, but the tour guide also explained how the process of lowering the engine into the car was unique to Lamborghini. We even saw a man jetting a newly made vehicle through the factory into the parking lot for a test drive (which is apparently an extremely prestigious job!). They are required to go a certain number of miles before being shipped to the customer. It was awesome seeing the car doors that flipped upward, signifying the car being way out of my price range. We went to the gift store afterwards, where I obviously purchased a postcard. It reminded me of the episode of Friends where Joey wore all the Porsche gear to make him look like he owned the car, so I decided not to buy any (very expensive) Lamborghini apparel for the family. A man drove up to the factory in a Lamborghini to get it serviced, and as he stepped out of the car, Stampsies says, "Thank goodness he has the car, with those looks he would never get a girl!" Oh Stampsies..
We took off in the bus for an hour and arrived early at our tour of the Parmesan cheese factory. Boy was it smelly outside! I really wanted to purchase some to bring back to the family, but I figured it would be tough to travel with refrigeration-wise. We had to dress up in face masks, lab coats, and shoe covers to get into the factory as to not contaminate the cheese! The cheese was made in huge vats where they mixed together the ingredients, including whey and intestines, which are the only ones I remember! (This tour guide was also very hard to understand!). The cheese is put into large blocks, with an imprint on the outside notifying that it was Parmesan and where it was made. They also write the date and time it was produced on the cheese with blue marker. The cheese soaks in huge vats of water, and then is removed and placed on large shelves. The room with the shelves contained over five million dollars worth of cheese! We took lots of selfies in our cute outfits with the big pieces of cheese. After the tour, they brought out a huge block of Parmesan for us to try. Wow, it was rich but do delicious!! On the bus ride home, I had the best time talking to Nick, Todd, Tommy, and David, which mainly included making fun of Tommy's ridiculous antics. I was so happy to get back to Milan though, the combination of strong cheese and bus motion sickness made me way too nauseous. It was also so nice to see Mia again!! After going through pictures, I was so happy to crawl into bed and enjoy my first good nights sleep in days!
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