Friday, March 11, 2011

Switching Gears

It's Spring Break.

I probably shouldn't say that, since there are probably still people out there plugging away at exams and papers, but having just completed my last deliverable for the quarter, I'm in celebratory mode!

The only thing on the agenda for the next two days is having fun and packing. On Monday afternoon, I fly from Dulles (airport at Washington DC) to Beijing. With "walking along the Great Wall" on my bucket list, I figure there's no better time than right now to head over there and check it out. What makes NOW such a great time is that a) I have someone to travel with, b) there will be a group of Darden students also in China, along with a Chinese-speaking professor who has given us his phone number in case of emergency and, most importantly, c) exchange students from China have volunteered to either hook us up with friends over there or drive us around. So with all of that, what better time to travel to a country that is wholly foreign? It will definitely be an adventure since all my travel to date has been to countries where I have at least a small amount of knowledge of the language.

As you can well imagine, I am not the only one headed off. As I mentioned earlier, there will be a group of students in China for the GBE (Global Business Experience), and similar groups will be in Barcelona, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Argentina and Dubai*.

Beyond that, I know of people headed to Turkey, Colombia, Greece, Cold Lake (in Alberta! Yay homeland!), New Orleans, Zurich, Costa Rica, Vietnam and many other corners of the globe. The break is so long that I know of many people heading to two completely opposite locations over the two-week period.

Anyway, I will strive to keep my blog updated throughout my time in China... While I am fairly certain Blogger and Facebook are both blocked, I think there may be ways to get around that... If that doesn't work, I'll try to post some photos and stories when I return in two weeks.

*There were GBEs scheduled for Egypt and Bahrain, but given the recent turmoil, Egypt was cancelled and Bahrain rerouted to Dubai.

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