Adventure is out there!

My european adventure is coming close to an end with less than a week to go until I arrive back in the states. So far I can say that I have hiked a mountain in Northern Italy, swam in the Mediterranean Sea, paraglided over the Swiss Alps, climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, visited the remains of the Berlin wall, and I can confidently say that it has changed my view of the world forever. It is honestly hard to explain all of this without sounding cliche’ or cheesy. Before my European adventure began I would have never expected to learn as much as I have. I have learned that people are mostly good with good intentions, that language barriers are a very real thing, and that I have a ridiculous amount of resources at my disposal living in America.

During my time as a tourist I have had my fair share of getting lost and wondering around, and when I say that people are mostly good I am referring to the amount of times in multiple different countries that complete strangers have gone out of their way to help me. Some as far as walking me to where I needed to go. Sometimes this was more difficult when there was a major language barrier. Most people all over europe speak at least a little bit of English but when they didn’t pointing was about as far as instructions could go. I cannot tell you how many times I had people apologize to me for not speaking better English which made me feel incompetent for only speaking english.

A major thing I noticed while being over here is that it’s not easy to run to your local grocery store or corner store and find what you’re looking for. Midnight runs to get food don’t exist, and if you need to buy groceries or medicine from the pharmacy you better get it all before ten at night. Europeans are not all about convenience like Americans are, and it was much more difficult to adjust to than I thought it would be. Now that I am less than a week from going home I can honestly say that I am going to miss the kind of life I have been living here. I learned to enjoy getting lost and finding new places along the way, I learned to appreciate the patience of the locals, and I also learned that convenience can make people spoiled. I have ultimately learned more about the world and myself during this three month experience.