I wish everyone could travel and realize America is not the center of the universe. Not even close.

Everyone should have the chance to feel ignorant. Slow. Dim-witted. Embarrassed. Not very smart. (After all, they’re multilingual and I’ve merely completed 300 days of Duolingo.) My feeble attempts to ask for a table in Italian are met with “Certainly, madam. Would you like still water or sparkling?” (In perfect English.) Everyone should have to watch those around them to try to figure out what to do, to be brave enough to ask questions, to smile gratefully since words are inadequate, to wonder what is around the next corner, that shaded walkway, or up that flight of stairs.

People should experience being lost, holding a phone with a map app in your hand and yet not being entirely sure which way is up. (Real talk: every way is up, somehow, in both directions.) It’s good to feel awkward and unsure—how do you buy tickets again? Where? What do you mean, I have to validate? Every person should order food they are not entirely certain they know the translation of, and when it arrives, try it anyway. (Who knew I’d love pistachio cream donuts? But octopus tentacles are a hard pass for me.) Everyone should get to drink Prosecco for lunch and eat pizza with a knife and fork. It is good to let yourself be surprised by tastes you’ve never experienced. Listen to directions you only partly understand. Overhear conversations full of hundreds of syllables and rolled Rs and rising and falling volume, passionate words you cannot understand. (Makes you appreciate our own immigrants in a new way.)

Every person should learn what it is like to feel unsettled. To try to pretend to be home in a place where the stove burners barely work and there’s a dorm fridge but no freezer. Where the grocery store carries more than thirty shapes of pasta but no jarred sauce. Where the only meats in the case are salame and ham. Where cheese is pale yellow and comes in wheels instead of plastic-wrapped squares. Where the Pringles are flavored with paprika and making coffee in the moka pot is like learning another language. (Fitting, since the resulting coffee is like a whole new category of coffee.) Everyone should go weeks with no ice cubes, even in 90-some degree heat, searching for any small perch in the shade where you can sit to recoup your energy for the next leg of the journey. Everyone should experience what it is like to pay a euro to use the bathroom, and then for the toilet to have no seat. To embrace what’s different, and to live life surrounded by art and beauty.

Everyone should have the opportunity to experience the ordinary side by side with the extraordinary. The trees are different, the flowers, the shrubs. The light, the colors, the sounds, the smells. The buildings and arches, carvings and sculptures, colors and patterns have no limit. They’re breathtaking. Their exuberance makes even the shadows feel extraordinary. These places inherently bring a sense of reverence, making every moment feel holy.

Traveling is the bravest thing I’ve done. This trip has challenged my comfort level beyond what I imagined. Traveling alone as an introvert is even more of a challenge. But I’m not really alone because I have my camera. My sketchbook. My social media. And nobody around me cares that I feel lonely or awkward. I feel invisible. No one here knows my family, follows me online, or goes to my church. And as a 57-year-old woman, I am virtually invisible to people around me.

Leaving home keeps us from taking our ordinary lives for granted as we realize how differently we live, see which things we really miss. The houses are small, vertical, older than our country. Stacked upon each other, hugging the cliffs, ordinary even in their exoticism. The food is different—haven’t seen a piece of chicken in two weeks. No eggs for breakfast. Nothing fried. No disposal so food waste goes into a bucket under the sink. Water bottles are filled from gurgling, slightly mossy fountains in town squares. Men carry purses. Women drive mopeds and wear high heels. Cars squeeze by each other on impossibly narrow roads, and yet rarely crash. Dinners are slow, leisurely affairs, with restaurants not open until at least 7 pm, yet outside of restaurants people rush in and out of snack bars, gulping shots of espresso. Miniature delivery trucks slingshot around the switchbacks on the road that drops down to the beach. Fast, fast, fast, then stop. Around every other corner is a shrine, or memorial to a person or place, worn marble plaques bearing witness to what should never be forgotten. Every few steps you find another church, a quiet sanctuary reminding you that people everywhere believed God would show up if they made a place for him. And you have the privilege of stepping inside, just for a moment, to remember.

Yes, traveling—especially overseas—is incredibly expensive. All of it: international flights, accommodations, food, entry fees. Even getting a passport is not cheap. It’s hard to leave our responsibilities and obligations behind, to arrange for things to be handled in your absence. As I planned this trip, it felt ridiculously indulgent. It’s definitely a stretch, an investment. I’m aware of what a privilege it is to be able to take this trip I’ve dreamed of for years. And yet I needed this reset. I love this place as much as I hoped I might. I feel more alone than I ever imagined I could. Multiple things can be true all at once.

And here’s the truth: This place is beautiful. I love being in one place and starting to get comfortable. And I don’t fit. And I want to come home. And I never want to leave. And I love it here. And I miss eating eggs at home for breakfast, but I can’t get enough of their sweet, juicy tomatoes. I want to give my calves a rest, and soak my aching feet, and sit inside in 70˚ air conditioning. And I also want to walk for hours in the heat, sweat pouring off me, climbing more steps than I thought I was capable of, carrying my camera and stopping every few feet to whisper, Wow.

I want to continue to live my life in a state of observation and wonder. And I want that for you, too, wherever you are.

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