“We are booking our trip to France right now,” said my brother just a year ago over the phone while I was at a friend’s house. He was talking about spring break. We had been planning to go to Hawaii because it was my turn to choose where we went. I had the family convinced that Oahu would be the best place to go, but not my brother Ricky. He thought going to France would be a more exciting vacation even though the weather would not be warm. Since I am the one that always plans our vacations, we ended up having a twenty-hour wait in Brussels. I like to think of it as a beginner’s mistake, but it really irritated me at the time.

Then when we got to Europe I had some fun but I do not really enjoy the language barrier. It makes me nervous when there is a possibility of getting into a situation that I would not be in control of. But aside from being nervous, this trip was the first time I had ever experienced my favorite place in the world. It’s called Monaco and it was just so interesting and beautiful that I did not want to leave when our vacation came to an end. I had experienced an exciting culture that was different from my own. It was able to change my worldview by changing my feeling about different countries. Before, I viewed Europe as being boring, and my thoughts were that all anyone could do there was go to a museum and maybe see a landmark that is possibly just as boring as going to the museum. Now I think of it as a place full of possibilities and opportunities. I even plan on living there at some point in my life.