Story by Taylor Camden, Executive Editor

Main photo by Samantha Zoltanski, Assistant Sports Editor

The doors of opportunity you’ve been quietly knocking on suddenly open — behind them, you find yourself in another country.

For most students, traveling abroad merely crosses their mind from time to time or remains a distant dream they never live out.

Why go see the Wall of China  in Beijing if you can just Google it, right? Why dine as the Italians do in Rome when you could just go to Olive Garden, right? But more importantly, why not?

Researching the country you want to go to is easy. It’s easy to stop and look at a poster on the wall in your department of study. Saying “Yeah, sounds like fun, sign me up!” is an easy, unbinding commitment.

It isn’t until you’re smiling for the photo on your passport issued by the United States when you’ll realize you’re about to embark on perhaps the most amazing journey of your life — changing the game.

If you ever decide to take that leap of faith and travel overseas, you’ll find yourself in some difficult situations, but the beauty of it all is finding the exit (or sortie, in our case). You’ll forget to go to the bathroom before you leave to see some amazing work of architecture and soon find yourself a mile away from the nearest metro stop — and there are no public restrooms. Fantastic.

You’ll order a Croque Madame, expecting a ham and cheese sandwich. You’ll quickly find out that you really ordered a toasted slice of cheese bread with a cooked egg waiting for your knife to ooze yolk over your entire plate. You’ll laugh about it later. I promise.

The most important thing you’ll do abroad is enrich your entire self by basking in the culture around you. It’s important not only that you observe, but that you live. Live, breathe and react to the culture you’re in. Live it up.

This is the time of your life.

Photos coming soon