For as long as I can remember I had a fascination with the Caribbean and ancient Egypt. In my late teens and early twenties, I developed visions of Egypt and the Caribbean that were almost haunting: I couldn’t get these far-away places out of my mind and thoughts. In my early 20’s, I had two severe occurrences in my life that made me realize that life waits for no one- it can be over or at least severely altered in the blink of an eye. So, when my world fell apart at 27 years old, I was ready to go- go somewhere, go anywhere…. But no one that I knew would “go” anywhere with me, except to the local mall or bar. And wow, I tried really, really hard…. I made it my mission to change some things- I found some new friends that were willing to go on a cruise: Absolutely amazing experience for me. I ended up on about 8 cruises, travelling throughout the Caribbean and Central America. It was on my first cruise that I found this beautiful, green island named Dominica. Although I wanted to see other Caribbean places, I always tried to find a cruise that would stop by Dominica again. I succeeded a few times. I also wanted to see what other places were out there, so Dominica couldn’t be on my itinerary every time. I am thankful for all of the different country’s that cruising introduced me to.

Eventually, as all things tend to change and cruising with my friends had to come to an end. Life changes for people and some of us had to change priorities. Once again, I found myself with a dent in my travelling ability. I finally decided: Well it is what it is, so let’s go to Egypt. I booked my trip with a group tour operator, booked my flight, and packed my bags… off to Cairo I went… right after the Arab Spring uprising and during the elections…. By myself, and only speaking English. As I landed in Cairo, I thought OMG am I crazy? I don’t know what to expect! Only that “someone” is supposed to meet me at the airport and transport me to the hotel. Well at least I got my Egyptian Pounds before I left Long Island…. It’s weird the things that you can think of when your thrown into a new situation. But having the local currency seemed to make me feel in control at least a little bit, like I could fit in in Egypt as long as I had this local currency. So, I stepped off the plane and into a new world… by myself. Well that trip proved to be successful. I met a lot of new people from all over the world, including one girl that lived in Queens – we bonded over living so close to each other. I learned things about other peoples’ countries, talked to as many Egyptians as I could to try to satisfy my desire to learn and know everything that I could about life outside of Long Island, NY. I was standing in the land of the Ancient Pharaoh’s; I was standing INSIDE of one of the pyramids in Giza! How awesome is that? I went from looking at a pyramid in a history book in my middle school years to STANDING INSIDE of one! How much history has taken place on the ground beneath my feet? What is this strange ancient language (Hieroglyphs) and modern alphabet (Arabic) written EVERYWHERE? Well now I got not only the travel bug, but the language bug too. The realization that English may not be the only way to go. I realized that I couldn’t do ANYTHING without a translator (good thing I was on a group trip with everyone that spoke English)! How scary would that be? I also realized that people can be very patient with you if you at least try to learn some of their language… it bridges a gap. When I got home, I enrolled myself into an intensive eight-week Arabic program. All of a sudden, Arabic was so real to me, I had to learn it…. It wasn’t just a language that I had “heard of” in a far-off land somewhere that will never affect my life…. It WAS my life for nine full days. I mean at the very least I had to order food and find out where bathrooms were, right? (Side note: if in Egypt, ALWAYS ,ALWAYS, ALWAYS, carry around your own tissue!! This is not an option) Maybe even know how to say thank you?

After visiting the ancient land of pyramids, pharaoh’s, tombs, and mummified bodies coupled with modern day societal life, I set off for Morocco on another small group tour. This time, I was travelling to northern Africa during the Ebola outbreak in the northwestern part of Africa… life is short and this was my opportunity… no serious travel warnings to morocco so, pack a bag and go. As I prepared for my trip to Morocco, Dirhams in hand, I felt confident… I had tackled a little bit of the Arabic language and I could at least write the alphabet, right? Well, unexpectedly, I hadn’t been prepared for the fact that when I stepped off the plane into this wonderful city of Casablanca, that every single sign was going to be in FRENCH! I couldn’t even decipher where to get my luggage. I just tried to follow the masses and hoped like hell to find it! I can’t say that it was smooth sailing when I did manage to find my luggage because not ONE person even spoke English in the airport. NOT ONE! A feeling of dread set over me and I ended up wanting to run right back to the plane that I had just gotten off of and make them fly me back home where I was comfortable and knew what was going on. I couldn’t find the driver that was arranged to take me to the hotel!! Oh, now what do I do? So, I panicked and called my mom- International rates and all, not to mention the time difference. So… I woke her up in the middle of the night with my panicked “I don’t know what to do” situation even though logically, there wasn’t really anything that she could do to help me…. But she did call the tour operator. It took about, well I don’t really know how long, it felt like hours, but eventually the driver showed up and found me. He carted me off to the hotel where I met other English-speaking people in my group for the week. RELIEF! Now I was comfortable again. A lot of excitement started building up inside of me and I couldn’t wait to begin exploring this bucket list place of mine! From the ancient Roman city of Volubilis to the medina in Fes to bathing in a traditional Hammam (that was a different type of experience in itself!) to sleeping in the Sahara Desert and eating dinner cooked by Berbers (Indigenous North Africans) under the stars, I got to see and experience all of it plus more with my new group of friends.

After all of that, I decided that I could go back to the Caribbean alone; to my most favorite place that I had ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. The one that stuck with me since my very first cruise: Dominica, The Nature Island. Now, I had been back to Dominica a few times during my cruising days, where I basically just did different shore excursions and walked around a few blocks range of the city- remember all of this was going on before the internet was so widely prevalent, I didn’t have to much information available. By the time I decided to go back to Dominica as a stay-over tourist instead of a cruise ship tourist, I Booked my flight, I booked a hotel in the city that I had seen before, and set out to explore this wonderful island on my own, little by little. When traveling to other countries alone, I am very cautious and venture out little by little the more comfortable that I become. Over time, I met more Dominicans, learned the island geographically, learned how to get around, and Dominica began to feel like the place that I was always meant to be. So the point of my story, the Caribbean taught me that I definitely had a desire to explore new territories and blend in with local customs and cultures, Egypt made me discover that I am fully capable of maneuvering my way through a foreign land completely different than my own, even with language barriers, Morocco showed me there is absolute beauty and fulfillment in sleeping under the stars in a desert I had only read about in history books with new friends and a bunch of camel…. Most of all, from all my trips, I learned that little by little I was able to overcome my fear of leaving my comfort zone and venturing into the unknown, I learned that great new friends were waiting to be found in far off distant lands, and most importantly I learned that it wasn’t that hard and that the scared feeling that I felt was actually exciting…. Being scared led to excitement.