Mind the Gap

     It's been two weeks.  Seriously.  Two weeks ago, I boarded a plane and headed back to the United States from Europe.  Two weeks that feel as if they were both yesterday and months ago.  One of my absolute favorite Professors, indeed, the same professor who led me and twelve other students around Europe, says at the beginning of every semester, "If you've read this book, you absolutely must read it again.   Not a word of it has changed, but you have."  It may seem like an unlikely combination.  What does reading have to do with my confusion about how long ago I went to Europe?   His words echo the thoughts in my head.  I feel as though the person who boarded that first flight to London is not the person sitting here today.
     Before this trip, I had only been outside the United States once, and that was on a cruise, so I didn't spend that much time actually in another country, and that country was the Bahamas, where everyone spoke English, so I don't really feel as if it were another country.  When I stepped foot on the plane headed to London, it was the first time I'd been on an international flight.  I had no idea what it feels like to sit on a plane for 7 hours, and I had no idea flights could be affected by the jet stream.  As I left, though, excitement was the only feeling coursing through my veins.  My first international flight meant I was going somewhere new.  Somewhere I'd never dreamed I'd actually get to go.  I was going to Europe.  Europe!!!  So while most people slept on this overnight flight, I watched movies on the small screen on the seat back in front of me and checked the status of our journey between movies, tracking our progress as we drew closer and closer to the United Kingdom.  I needed no coffee, no caffeinated beverages.  I was waiting.
     As I stepped off the plane and into the airport, I only hoped it wouldn't take too long to go through customs and eagerly awaited the first stamp in my passport book.  I couldn't wait to see Big Ben, visit the British Museum, and see a "foggy day in London town," if only so I could sing the song.  I was a tourist, looking for the sights.  But I also wanted to experience more than the typical sights.  I was ready to be a traveler.  Luckily for me, my professor is a traveler.  As we walked across London and rode the tube, he encouraged us to notice the people, the sounds, and the feeling of being in another place. 
     As we journeyed from London to Prague and then on to Amsterdam and Brussels, I found myself realizing how small the world I once knew was.  Before we left, all I'd ever known was the United States and the culture of the United States- it's foods, smells, sounds, people, and ideas.  I knew Europe only as a place on the map and an enchanting area filled with other people.  My world consisted of an area the size of Kansas and Nebraska.  Sure, I'd been to other places in the United States and I kind of knew them, but for me, it was corn and wheat, farming, cows, agriculture.  Band.  American English.  A history of America.  The world's history, according to Americans.  The people who inhabited my world were family and friends and Americans (immigrants or not).  But as we journeyed, I realized the world is comprised of infinitely more than I ever imagined.  How could I come back and not be changed by all that I felt, saw, and heard?
     What does it mean to come back to this place I've known all my life and find it somehow different?  Though it has not changed, as my professor would say, I have changed.  The life I had before seems inconsequential in the light of the world.  I wouldn't characterize myself as self-absorbed, but the things that weighed on my mind just four weeks ago seem small in comparison to the world I see now.  I see so much more than than what's before me today.  As I read the paper each afternoon, I find myself noticing the news from the places we visited, articles I would have passed over had I not been to the places myself.  I always felt as if the entirety of my life would be spent in the comfort of the world I knew.  I had wanted to travel, and I'd known the world was out there, but now I feel I am a part of that world.  I realize my "role" in this world in a much broader sense.
     And while time will continue to pass and weaken my visual memories of the trip, it won't weaken the things I felt and the ways in which I changed as a result of the trip.  A typical saying on the London Underground is to "Mind the Gap" between the train and the platform, meaning be aware of the gap.  Instead of the train and the platform, I'm minding the gap between the person was and the person I am as a result of my travels.