The silk road

This is my forth weekend in Italy. I have been reading quantities of blogs this afternoon. Some of them are the reports of the returnees, some of them are my friends’ 2009 review, some of them are the comments on current events and the rest of them are just the simple but genuine words that I wrote several years ago. It is too marvelous to imagine that one day I can stay here, a tiny but quite beautiful city in Northern Italy, to recall my past life.

My name is Harriet, a Chinese girl who came from Canton and started her first exchange experience to Italy 25 days ago.

-“Is this the first time that you come to Italy?”
-“Actually this is my first time of being abroad.”
-“Wow!! Really? Why for Italy?”

This conversation appeared every day in my first days here. “Why Italy?” This question has also come out everyday during my match time. I think there is no doubt that Italy has the longest history in Europe. And there is no doubt either that Italy has the complicated but attractive culture in its religion area, political area, art area and even in their daily life. For a boy, it’s a place where it has the most exciting football match. For a girl. it’s a place where it holds the most amazing fashion week in the world every year. And for a tourist, it’s a place that combines the mount of Alps and the sunshine of Tuscany. I would hardly give up Italy if I had the chance. So why not? This thought turned out to be a belief and became stronger and stronger after I sent several emails to Fede, the lovely VPX of AIESEC PAVIA.

The process of match is tough but meaningful to me. With the pressures of my colleagues and my parents, I learned how to insist on my dream and to face the pressures all by myself. I think the meaning of AIESEC exchange is not just about the experience when we’re abroad. We also gain a lot from the preparation till some years after. I think several years later, when we reread the words in our diaries, we will also remember these sparkling days in our most beautiful age.

From China to Italy, a 22 hours journey not only just brought me from a Eastern country to a European country, but also brought me to a new kind of life where I can discover more about the world and myself. So when I stepped on the land of Italy, where Julius Caesar have said the words “Veni Vidi Vici” and founded the Rome Empire, where Marco Polo began his journey to China, where the Renaissance or even the new age of Europe originated, I finally began to smile, to this wonderland, and also to my dream.



“Change by soul, change by steps.” This sentence was written in my diary when I flied over the land of Siberia and became to the credo of my life here.