Change Your World.

Last week I had an anniversary. It's one I celebrate for myself, by myself, every year. Monday, April 26th marked eight years since I left England. On a rainy, cool Friday morning, I’d flown away from my flatmates, out of London, bound for Bergen, Norway, alone.

There are moments when that solo backpacking adventure seems like yesterday. I’ll catch a reference to a town I visited in a book I’m reading and will instantly recall exactly what the town looked, smelled, and felt like. Or I’ll sit down alone to order dinner somewhere in Boston, craving a hot, homemade meal rather than a standard “quick fix” sandwich and will mentally flash - just for a second - back to a café in Sweden where, after a week or so of just pointing at pre-made sandwiches in an effort to avoid the language barrier, I found myself shedding grateful tears when the waitress offered to guide me through the menu in English.

Every once in a while, when I call “hey” to a friend in greeting, I’m reminded of how the Scandinavian slang for hello is “hej” – pronounced exactly like “hey.” I’ll smile to myself, thinking of the many times I would greet a shopkeeper with “hej” only to be bombarded by a slew of Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish words. Of which I understood zero.

When I see tulips, my favorite flowers, I’m reminded of my time in the Netherlands. I picture riding a bike along with our family friend Frans, off running errands together as if I was a local Dutch woman. I can still recall how grateful I was to visit those family friends and how clean my clothes felt after Fran's wife, Ria, gave them thorough, much needed laundering.

I can see my time in Paris clear as anything, most of it spent in museums, marveling at the idea that I was finally – really – seeing so much art that I’d previously only seen in books. There are mornings now, even 8 years later, as I lather my face with my daily moisturizer that I recall the afternoon I gratefully found a Clinque counter in a mall near the Louvre. There I was, all the way across the Atlantic, shelling out Euros for a bottle of Clinque moisturizer! In Paris!

I recount stories to my parents, reminiscing about the God-awful hotel I stayed in one night in Amsterdam when I couldn’t find an open hostel. “I don’t even think the door locked!” I tell them. “But I was so exhausted, I just shoved a chair up against it and hoped no one would try and come in.” I shake my head when I think about the random Russian man who was on my overnight train from Venice to Paris and how grateful I was when the conductor told him no, he could not change his ticket just to be in my compartment. Just as quickly though, I smile, recalling how he invited me to the dining car for dinner and on an uncharacteristic whim I'd agreed. I smile not because of the company that night, but because I was given the chance to eat a fancy meal - linen table cloths, champagne, three courses - on an overnight car in Europe. All on the Russian's dime.

At night sometimes, when I cannot fall asleep, I remember the spot I stayed overnight in Munich, where I crawled into bed listening to the sounds of guests drinking beer and laughing below my window, and how I slept one of the best sleeps of my life that night.

I think of the many books I read along the journey, the ones that kept me company on so many train rides and overnight stays. I can remember which books I left where - Tom Robbins on a train bound for Copenhagen, Mary Higgins Clark in Venice, the formulaic writing driving me mad.

People ask what my favorite spot was and I never have a clear answer. I tell them Norway was the most beautiful spot in Scandinavia, that the Netherlands was charming every single minute, that Venice revived my spirits when I was tired, homesick, and worn-out, that you cannot help but fall under Paris's enchanting spell, that I wish I'd made it to Spain, that I loved it all.

And then there are other moments, when the journey feels a lifetime removed. Now well versed in my daily routine of a subway ride, a stop for coffee, and into a desk job, I can barely believe I once had months and months to just explore the world. When I stop and think about those months, that itinerary, that (massive) green backpack I carried everywhere, and my constant companion, The Lonely Planet's Guide to Europe on a Shoestring, I don't quite recognize myself. I have days where I'm not sure I could ever find the strength to do something like that again.

But, of course I could.

Certainly I would do some things differently, eight more years of life's experiences have taught me that. And I probably wouldn't want to do it all completely on my own again, but it will be a lifelong comfort to me to know that I could.

Because I did.