Recent journal entry:
China:
Greetings from Abroad
By Aaron Holmberg Senior, Mechanical Engineering
July 28 , 2006

My summer trip to China is nearly complete and the days are starting to fly by like minutes on a watch. Every evening I have something new and exciting to do, and I have become so comfortable in this city that I sometimes forget that I am tall, white and everyone is still staring at me. When I came here, anyone that read my first messages realized this wasn't the most comfortable thing that I have ever done, and I believed the end would not come soon enough. Things have progressed and now I don't want to leave because of all the friends I have made here and all of the excitement in this city.

And now for the latest news: There are now three more new IAESTE interns here. Guys from Switzerland, Germany and Scotland have all started working at my company. I have been spending a lot of time showing them the ropes and trying to ease them into the good old culture shock thing. I now lead a small army of foreigners to the bus stop every morning at 6:30 a.m. to pile on the bus and head to the company. Now the buses are a little more crowded, and the locals don't seem to appreciate it much.

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to go indoor skiing for the first time. I thought they probably would have some kind of slick plastic on the hill to slide down but I was wrong on that one. The entire building was air conditioned down to freezing and snow apparel was rented out along with the skis. I tried to snowboard for the first time in my life and spent most of my time sliding down the hill. I gave up near the end and started a big snowball fight instead of trying to break myself snowboarding.

I have been working on exploring the city more than ever since the end is nearing and my parents will soon be headed here to explore Beijing and Shanghai with me. I have spent the last four evenings on top of the various buildings here in Shanghai finding which ones will be the best to take them to.

Sincerely,
Aaron H.