June 20

The first excursion planned for this morning was a trip to Fendi. Our time at Fendi is one of my favorite things we have done so far, up there with the Valentino exhibit. Once again, we had an adorable guide. She told us about some of Fendi's history and their famous "baguette," and she took us to the showrooms of beautiful clothes, shoes, and bags. They even have baby Fendi bottles, strollers, and teddy bears. We got to see the posh dressing room that they give celebrities who come in. She said that the last person to use the room was Amy Winehouse. Another man did a demonstration of several ways to wear a Fendi fur stole. Then we went upstairs to the fur workroom and saw every step of the fur making process. We saw the ORIGINAL sketch by Karl Lagerfeld, the canvas draped pattern, the paper pattern marked up with how each individual fur would go, and the final product. About 7 people were working upstairs. One man was stretching furs by brushing normal, or Roman, water on the leather side and nailing the fur to a table to dry overnight. Two women were sewing furs, being careful not to sew over any of the hair, but only on the leater. Another man was using a razor to cut the leather side of the fur, pulling the hair through to make designs. Fendi's newest fur technique is putting 24k gold on fur such as fox and mink. On the wall, there was a bulletin board of the next collection that they had covered up with paper for security. Before we left Fendi, we went up to the top of the building for a great view of Rome.

We spent most of the afternoon at the Vatican. We had to wear earpieces and walkie talkie things to listen to our tour guide. We saw the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's church, and the rest of the Vatican museum. I took it all in, but I really did not understand or get too into what our tour guide was telling us.

Tonight we ate dinner at McDonald's. This may seem lame since we are in Rome, but a) we have to visit American businesses here eventually and write about them for homework, and b) it was way better than most Roman food to me. I have heard good things about the food in Europe, but I feel like it is just a bunch of bread, pizza, and pasta, most of which isn't as good as what I have at home. I miss Chickfila, turkey sandwiches with whole wheat bread, chocolate, etc. I haven't been missing sweet tea too much, but I try to get rid of the thought any time it occurs to me.