It started back in 2016, I had just acquired what would be my most prized possession, my first passport. After dealing with heartbreak, and a job that was leading nowhere, I decided to take all the money I had saved at that point and book a one way flight to Europe. Basically traveling around until I ran out of money. First stop was Germany, where I would celebrate Oktoberfest with my brother and best friend, where we would exclusively be- a barely formed brain cell. From there we would fly over to Ireland to do a “bit” more drinking, and that’s where we would part ways and I’d continue my journey to the rest of western europe.

The second leg of my journey would a solo one. The amount of anxiety I had being alone in europe was a dreadful one, but my next destination I would meet someone who would completely erase that, her name is Gina, she’s a flight attendant for emirates, we met upon exiting the train from the airport to the main city of Barcelona, I was genuinely confused on how to exit, so I let her pass, but she also didn’t know how to exit as well, long story short we figured it out and we spent the whole afternoon together before she had to fly back out same day. We would eventually cross paths on my side of the world, but that’s another story to tell; and basically from that moment on, I knew I was going to be fine.

The rest of the trip was more a less a blur, I would go on to Belgium and the Netherlands, do more drinking and exploring

France was a good reset. I was able to meet up with my best friend again in Paris, albeit short lived, as well as a friend I knew back home who was studying abroad, aside from that, I was fascinated with all the rich history and architecture of the city. Through the entire trip, I really didn’t document much other than taking dumb selfies and just snapping whatever I found interesting, which in hindsight, wasn’t much

I would make my way back to Germany where i would spend weeks traveling around some cities- Cologne, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Frankfurt.

I would eventually make my way to my final destination. Italy, where i would subsequently see my first world wonder. I didn’t know then but that would have changed the course of my life, forever.

World of Wonder