When I was 21 years old I had the good fortune to be able to study abroad. I like to think that I didn’t take the experience for granted- I remember being filled with excitement every moment leading up to it, and treasure the memories of those six months to this very day.
One thing I don’t think I fully appreciated until now, though, was how fortunate I was to have come out the other side of that semester virtually unscathed. I traveled alone, a lot, in countries where I wasn’t fluent in the language. Stuff went wrong- I got lost, sometimes at night, sometimes with a…