The final day of our tour of Italy has come much faster than I could have expected. This trip has been such a blur in some sorts that finding myself inside the confines of LineaPelle for our last company visit just didn’t feel like the conclusion that it really was. That is not to say…
Tag: Nathaniel Dykstra
Plus3 Italy 2017 Student
Environmental Fashion
For the second to last day of our tour if Italy, we returned to Cattolica Universtiy in Milan for a lecture about sustainability in the world of fashion. This lecture, taught by professor Francesca Ronaldinho, was a crash course in various aspects in which the fashion industry has interacted with the concept of sustainability. One…
Shoes and Those Who Sell Them
Our first day back in Milan started in a pretty relaxed fashion as we sat down for a mid-morning presentation from a representative of our next company of interest, Velasca, a high-end shoe company with a unique business to consumer business model. After the presentation, we were able to visit locations of different stages of…
Tailors and Knitters
On this fine morning of day 10 in Italy, we said goodbye to the peaceful elegance of Verona, and piled into a bus to start our journey back to Milan. We had to make a couple stops along the way, and I don’t mean for bathroom breaks. We visited two companies who were associated with…
United They Stand: The Consorzio della Moda
Day 9 in Italy started a little later than usual, as we had no scheduled events until 3 o’clock this afternoon. As it was our full day in Verona, I took the time to explore the streets and shops a bit more, as well as help myself to some gelato for lunch. The afternoon rolled…
Venice. Wow.
Day 8 of our tour of Italy took us to a place unlike any other that I have been to in the past; Venice. After a quick 1 hour train ride, we stepped out into the city, into the view of the main canal that runs through Venice, and I have to say, the scene…
A Tale of Two Cities
Day 7 has arrived! It is a wonder that we have been in Italy for a full week now, as the busy days have made this trip seem like a blur in my opinion. Our adventure for the day started with a 3 hour bus ride to Verona. This was one city that I had…
Learning about Leather
Day 6 of our tour of Italy, and day 2 of our stay in Florence began with our group taking a short walk through the city to the Sculoa del Cuoio, or the School of Leather. As our tour guide explained to us, this school has quite the backstory. After the second world war, many…
Uffizi and Firenze
Our tour of Italy continued on with day 5, starting with our 3 hour bus ride from Milan to Florence. For the small portions that I was awake, it was interesting to see a part of Italy that wasn’t quite so urban as Milan. That said, the difference in the two urban areas we had…
A Trip to the Spa
Day 4 of our stay in Italy started bright and early, with our group piling into a bus for a day trip to Como, a minor city known for its extremely picturesque houses, restaurants and neighboring body of water, Lake Como. But before we traveled to the main part of Como, we visited the Mantero…
Day 3 with Da Vinci
With our third day in Milan, Italy, our group took a trip to the Da Vinci museum. Unbeknownst to me, Leonardo was first supported by the Duke of Milan, and conducted some of his best architectural work and engineering here before moving his work to Florence explaining the presence of the museum in this city….
Bags on Bags on Bags on B…..
On our second day here in Italy, we took a trip towards the main part of Milan, specifically to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall and the Brera district, to see what we could learn about the fashion industry that the city is so known for. For context, the Galleria, as it is colloquially…
First Impressions Across the Atlantic
After what felt like a marathon of a flight to Milan, we have finally made it and I could not be more excited! From the airport, we took a bus to our hotel, and right off the bat, you could tell that, well, we weren’t in the U.S. anymore. The roads our bus was travelling…
To Italia!
Hello! Ciao! My name is Nathaniel, or Nate, Dykstra and I am a rising sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, studying Bioengineering in the Swanson School of Engineering. I am extremely excited to travel to Italy, as this will be my first time in the country and in Europe as a whole. Needless to say,…
Meet Plus3 Italy 2017!
Welcome to the Italy Plus3 Study Abroad Program! Professors Jack Patzer and Mary Duquin are traveling to Milan, Italy with 20 College of Business Administration and Swanson School of Engineering students from May 6 – May 20. In addition to numerous cultural experiences, the trip will include visits to Como Textile, Milan Textile, MF1-Mario Faroni Knitwear Factory, Sartorial Cavour Tailoring Company,…