I was really looking forward to today because we got a chance to visit the Milan Starbucks Roastery, which is one of the companies I did research on prior to this trip, and also because we had a chance to visit the Giorgio Armani museum.

I already knew a bit about the Milan Starbucks Roastery because of my prior research, so it was really cool to finally see it in person. I always find it more valuable to visit anywhere after learning about it before because it really heightens the experience. I was also still able to learn a lot about the roastery that I didn’t find in my research. Starbucks is my favorite place to get coffee, so I was very excited to visit the first one to be opened in Milan, and it definitely exceeded my expectations. The roastery was beautiful and allowed you to see a lot of the inner workings of the way that they prepare the coffee. It is also interesting to see how well the Starbucks has been received in Milan due to the fact that coffee is a huge part of Italian culture, so of course, it can be difficult to bring in an American corporation into an industry that is already such a big part of Italian culture. From a business standpoint, one thing that caught my attention was the fact that the Milan Starbucks Roastery also produces coffee and sells it to other Starbucks locations around Europe. I understood that this is vertical integration, but I still found it strange that a company would sell products to other locations of the same company. I thought they just meant that they distribute it, but they actually sell it to other Starbucks locations which didn’t make much sense to me. Overall though, roastery was a great experience and I really enjoyed getting to try some of their brand new coffee lines as well.

The most fascinating part of the day for me was the Giorgio Armani museum, and getting to see a lot of the work he’s done over the years. We got a chance to see some of his collections throughout the years and they were some of the most beautiful dresses I’ve ever seen. My favorite collection was his “Cinema” collection where he made a lot of dresses for celebrities which would make anybody stand out in a crowd. Many of the pieces were ahead of their time, and have also withstood the test of time. There were so many timeless dresses from over 20 years ago that I could still see people wearing today.