Tourist with some work to do....

Globalisation and its various forms are continuing to bring people closer and closer together. We - people living in the west specifically, have loads of opporunity to go out into the world and explore different countries and cultures. Although we as interns have come to our host countries to work and apply our skills and knowledge to the working environment, I believe that we are still tourists. I can speak firmly for myself - I am a woking tourist. When a person arrives to a country where they have never been to, they automatically want to see the all of those exciting cultural landmarks that have been printed in magazines such as GEO and National Geographic. I'll be honest, I was a little upset when I was not able to go and see the Red Square in Moscow in the first week after my arrival. When I finally got to it, I saw bundles and bundles of tourists. It almost seemed that there were no locals around me. I noticed that there are a lot of Japanese, Italian and French tourists in the center of the city. After that, everyday after work I went to do more sightseeing...Tretyakov Gallery, Kremlin, Armours Chamber, Almaz Fond, WW2 Victory Park, Tsaritsino Park, Doctors Garden, VDNH (to look at Soviet Architecure), and varuous orthodox cathedrals and churches that are just gorgeous! As a tourist I was able to see the country and the culture in its "physical form", people who travel as tourists are only able to see just that for the most part. A key factor that makes us, interns, stand out from the "average" tourist (apart from our dress, i hope) is that we were able to see the country and the culture from within. This is why working abroad opportunities are so important. Throughout our placements, we were able to communite and work with people from the culture which we are exploring. Hopefully every one of us was was able to find out certain attributes that apply to their host countries' culture. Personally I found that overall Russian people are very warm, welcoming, and helpfull - once you get to know them. They are also unpatient, demanding, and its abolutely fine if they raise their voice and are sarcastic - that is the way the communicate - and if you communicate the same way in return it would not be considered rude. I believe that as interns, we were able to experience the "physical" attributes of the nation as well as get "inside" the nation and obtain real knowledge of the culture and the people.