You have been infected by the travel bug.

You ache to walk upon foreign grounds, to drink warm, spicy broths in unfamiliar markets, to speak in exotic tongues and to wade in exotic waters.

You yearn for cobblestoned thoroughfares and bitter black tea, centuries old foundations and crumbling remains.

You wish to understand a multitude of fascinating individuals in the world, those with friendly smiles that express the universal spirit of kindness in the frame of an unfamiliar face.

You have been infected, and you have been blessed.

To travel is to learn. Traveling is for those in constant pursuit of a knowledge that cannot be acquired behind a desk; traveling is for the keen and hungry, the wishful and the ambitious.

And my wish is to keep traveling, to continue to ravage the path ahead of me and to kick up dust in my wake. I intend to pursue an education both desk-bound and abroad; I intend to study in a country outside of my own.

For many, leaving their native land is a daunting concept, and living in another country, even temporarily, is unthinkable. To the travel-infected, it is perhaps the only way to live at all.

I spent two weeks living in a hostel in Dublin and I could not have been happier. The squeaky, unfamiliar top bunk in which I slept became my favorite bed, because in the mornings it meant waking up to another day in a country entirely new to me. The communal restrooms down the hall, albeit dank and public, were thoroughly entertaining as I witnessed some comical and eccentric habits during my visits.

For two weeks I lived in an unfamiliar, possibly dubious and certainly not five-star accommodation, and I loved every bit of it.

I spent one week living in Rome above a street where Italian-speaking voices could be heard all through the night. The dark mahogany shutters did little to block out the sound (or the stifling summer heat), and the pitch darkness of the room left a lingering sense of unfamiliarity, of being somewhere very, very far from home.

And I settled into the feeling, and grew to love every bit of it.

Discomfort in new experiences is not something to run from, but rather it is something to fall into with open arms and an open mind. We live in a vast, perplexing world full of distinctive environments and cultures, and such things were meant to spend a lifetime exploring.

So the conundrum is as follows: do I stay within my homeland for my collegiate education, or do I go abroad in search of the exotic, the unknown, the new?

To go would be to endure a long, meandering, adventure-filled road ahead.

Here is where I intend to chronicle my adventure. I hope you’ll stay to follow me along the winding road.