It’s Tuesday night and as I channel surf, I come across U2 on the BBC. Being the fan I am, of course I have to watch. As I do, I marvel at the power of music to transport you to another moment in time. Hearing “With or Without You” I’m instantly taken back to a beautiful summer evening a mere five months ago in Dublin listening to this song live in front of U2’s hometown crowd. All the emotions I felt in that moment came rushing back to me.
Now maybe it’s because of my love for the band, but I think it’s something more. After all, I’ve seen them in concert many times before. What was different this time around? This concert in Ireland was a Bucket List event. A “pinch me” moment. An “I can’t believe I get to do this” kind of night.
One of the things I’ve learned in my first six months of living abroad is life as an expat is filled with a lot of these kinds of moments. Not just for the big trips or weekends away – because they are certainly fertile ground – but also the daily experiences as you wander the streets discovering something new at every turn. The high I used to get from trips abroad once a year happens all the time right now. It is absolutely addictive.
This brings me to “Adventure”. The last few years I’ve adopted a word for the year. Brave two years ago. Fearless this past year. Ironically, they seem to lead into one another and Adventure seems to fit the same pattern. Sometimes the words require thought, but other times it’s totally obvious. This is one of the obvious times.
Why Adventure? Well, this expat experience is certainly an adventure in and of itself. One of the pieces of advice I heard early on was to say yes to everything. Knowing what I know about how these manifest themselves over the course of a year, I knew “yes” would probably be too big of a word, but I also knew I wanted to say yes to the adventures.
Through this experience, I’ve also had people tell me I’m adventurous, which kinda stopped me in my tracks. It’s not how I’ve traditionally thought of myself, but in my heart I know my true self is an explorer. I want to embrace that even more, so Adventure it is.
As part of this journey, I’ve also made a promise with myself to blog more. I love telling my travel stories, so for 2018 I’m going to write and share more. #52WeeksOfAdventure begins now!
Finding Unexpected Travel 