Let me tell you everything there is to know about the grand opening day of the Romanian American University’s School of Domestic and International Tourism Economics! Well, it was supposed to start at 11 and it started at 11.30. Yet this delay gave me just enough time to make a new friend, A, and to find out a lot of interesting things that actually made me proud of having chosen this school.

After locating the hall where the festivity was to be held, as I was early, I stopped on the hallway and was just waiting, looking around to see my new colleagues (plenty of those, over 800 only in my year, which is more than all the Journalism students – PR and Advertising not included here - in all four years). I saw this one girl that I knew I have seen before, couldn’t remember where. She knew me from somewhere as well (I heard her telling that to her friend) so I was thinking of saying hi and try to find out more, but as she avoided me, I thought I should just forget about it for the moment.

As I was sitting there, getting a little bored when I saw this girl coming my way. She had blond hair with a cool-funky hairdo, not very tall and quite skinny, but she had this cool look that suited her perfectly. I thought I would like to have her as a friend and that maybe we’d meet at a certain point. Well she stopped to ask something, we introduced each other and we spend the whole festivity together.

A. gave me some very interesting details. Such as this is the only Tourism school in Bucharest, as the one from the Academy of Economics Studies became Agro tourism. Such as this is the only one with International Tourism and with proper training for ticketing. Well, good to know! Now I’m more excited about studying there.

Now, the festivity…A huge room with very orange chairs! They made your eyes very tired, but they were so orange that you couldn’t possibly fall asleep. Then we all sat down and the teachers came in. And then a pretty silly moment: everybody got up and started applauding…I didn’t as it seemed quite stupid to applaud people I knew nothing about. Then they played “Gaudeamus Igitur” and we had to stand up and listen to it. Wow, and I thought my Latin days were over!

Then a lot of speeches…Interesting facts: my classes, online classes from American Unis, 3 months scholarship in GB for straight A students paid in full by the Uni. Nice motivation! Also some information about exam sessions, holidays and attendance.

Overall, it was ok, except the fact that the guy who established this university is quite misinformed: for example, Germany is not the hot shot of Europe, there are countries doing much better than them! Then, the Work & Travel program teaches you how to work hard to make some American money, but is not good practice for a tourism expert…Maybe I am not smart enough, but I cannot understand how washing dishes could help you be better in managing hotels…Unless you have such a job in a five stars hotel, and even so!

The manager of Majestic hotels was also present. Hid kids finished this very school. How nice! Well, maybe he should know Turkey is a pretty strong competitor and the offer there, the services and standards are as good as those in Italy! The fist thing about running a good business is knowing your competition and if Turkey is not a strong competitor for the Romanian seaside but Italy is, than I am a flying super-girl! Oh, well, never mind the fact he didn’t even mention Greece! Or other countries…If you say Italy, Spain and France it’s enough for the tourism world…

That’s all folks, will be back with more info on this after a get a taste of our classes.