Jamie Zhou stood outside the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg last week with 22 other students from Beijing Union University waiting for the docent-led tour to begin.

She'd only been in the United States for two days and already the 20-year-old had been surprised by the realities of the country she'd always wanted to visit.

"I [expected] more city," Ms. Zhou said, gesturing toward the trees and faraway hills around Westmoreland's county seat.

"It is beautiful," she said.

She and the other students are scheduled to leave today after nearly two weeks of classes, tours and social gatherings with Seton Hill University staff and students and community members. Beijing Union and Seton Hill have been "sister schools" since last summer, meaning they are developing joint educational programs, research projects and student and professor exchanges.

Jason Zhao, also 20, said American movies also made him want to visit this country, but not because of the scenery.

The English major found proper English and the idiom sometimes used in those movies just weren't the same.

"It's the slang," Mr. Zhao said. Sometimes he thinks it's incomprehensible and he'd like to learn it.

Dr. Terrance DePasquale, dean of Graduate and International Programs and professor of education at Seton Hill, said the 19- to 22-year-old students who came on this trip did so to absorb as much American culture as they could in two weeks.

Days were filled with seminars and classes, and weekends and evenings featured visits to Pittsburgh, dinners and picnics. They visited Station Square, the Pittsburgh zoo and Westmoreland Mall.

He said the students were proficient enough in English to benefit from the experience, some having studied the language four years or more. Most of the students who made the trip plan to teach English, run international businesses or work in tourism, he said.

The trip was an important one in their educational experience.

Their enthusiasm was evident. Digital cameras flashed continuously, as the Westmoreland Museum became the backdrop for photos the students took of each other and the group, including guides, teachers and even a reporter.

"They are delighted to be here," Dr. DePasquale said.

All were attentive as Frances Lynch, the musuem docent for that evening, led the group through the facility. American art means portraits of famous people like George Washington and the students knew who he was.

The students oohed when Ms. Lynch shut off the back light to a Tiffany window, exposing the colored glass surface that becomes opaque instead of translucent without the light. The window had been commissioned by one of Greensburg's wealthiest citizens, Thomas Lynch, who had it placed in the landing window of his mansion 200 years ago.

Dr. DePasquale said a Seton Hill group will travel to Beijing in the spring as part of the sister school exchange. This will be a first for Seton Hill, he said.

One Seton Hill student who will likely travel to Beijing next summer, but not as an exchange student, is Shanning Wan, a 19-year-old business major from Shanghai who was acting as a student assistant for this exchange trip.

She enjoyed being with the visiting students, having been away from her native land for almost a year.

Ms. Wan said she'll likely make a trip home, then go to Beijing to work at the Olympics scheduled to be in that city next summer. She hopes her language skills -- she is a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese as well as proficient in English -- will help her find a position.

She has two goals in mind for the trip.

"Go shopping and eat Chinese food," she laughed.

The Seton Hill freshman likes American food, actually preferring it to the Chinese-American food she can buy here.

"It's not the same," she said.