The Daily Collegian

So after reading this article, you might grow to hate me. Not because I suck, so much, but because I spent 40 days backpacking in Europe this summer, while you were mowing lawns or scooping ice cream, or, for the really ambitious, filing papers and sharpening pencils at some pretentious law firm.

I flew to Europe in the same plane as Russell Simmons. I watched Shakespeare in the exact replica of the Old Globe Theater in London. I traveled to Brussels and had a disappointing Belgian waffle. I went to Normandy and satisfied my lifelong desire to see the setting for the most important day of the last 100 years. I went to a coffee shop or two in Amsterdam. I gazed in awe at the Holocaust Memorial and stared at the crumbled remains of the Berlin Wall. I had a tour of Prague given by one of the most strangely wonderful men I've ever met; he told us that Radio Free Europe isn't really free, apparently. I had a beer in an ancient Austrian fortress with my non-drinking hand dangling 2,000 feet above the streets of Salzburg. I took an overnight train to Venice and slept on a 5-foot long bed. I had some of the best pasta I've ever come across in Florence, and I got it from a cafeteria.

The Pope blessed me during my time in Rome. My camera was broken in a freak accident traveling from Italy to Spain; apparently the Pope doesn't do electronics. I was surrounded by 'trippy' architecture and angry pickpockets in Barcelona, and almost saw a fight break out on a beach between a topless woman and a clueless tourist. I watched the bulls run by and experienced the longest party I've ever stumbled in and out of in Pamplona. I went to two exotic beach towns in Spain and France, and the weather was 'le crap' the entire time I was there. I drank plenty of Bordeaux wine and brought a bottle of it home. I sang "Wonderwall" (remember Oasis?) with complete strangers as a guy played acoustic guitar on the steps of the most famous church in Paris while we watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle at midnight. I watched Lance Armstrong win the Tour de France from 20 feet away.

And yet, none of these moments stand out the most as I look back on Europe. Instead, it's the moments that came in between that really counted, the moments that I'll never forget. The grins of amazement exchanged between friends as we reminded ourselves we were eating pizza in a Roman piazza, not an American Pizza Hut. The sound of silence as we all stood in awe of a beautiful painting or a ghastly concentration camp. Nightly conversations between the group over a pint of pivo, biere, cerveza, beer, or whatever you like to call it. Having the entire group endlessly rocking out to "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy. Everyone rushing to get off the train like a kid running to his Christmas presents each time we got to a new city. Each embarrassing incident where one of us attempted to speak a language we had never tackled before. Those are the memories I'll savor as long as I live.

Europe wasn't a perfect trip. I lost some things, and I broke some things. Some of them may be found; some of them may be fixed. Only time, some effort, and the good people at Nikon will tell. But don't let those imperfections frighten you off, Europe is

like no other place on earth. Each day is a new adventure. So take it from me: blow off some silly job next summer and backpack Europe. Spend the best three months of the year filing away moments worth remembering, not some jerk's legal briefs. You've only got a few summers left, so use them for now, not the future. The rest of your life will come before you know it, and it doesn't easily allow you to jet off to Europe for a month or so. Get there as soon as possible. When you meet Stephen in Prague, tell him I sent you.

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