"Amazing", and everything else that's not coming out of my mouth.

Here I sit, in a Virginia hotel, watching the thunderstorm from my bed and trying to look objectively at my summer. I stare at pictures in disbelief, pictures that I took in places like Venice, and Istanbul, and Cairo. I've been doing double-takes and rubbing my eyes profusely trying to slap some sense into myself that this summer actually happened. It's absurd.

I've been crying and hugging and struggling with at least 10 pieces of carry-on luggage all morning, and here I sit in complete awe. I can't get over it. You know those dreams you wake up from in the middle of the night, the ones that seem so real but are too good to be true? This trip is like that for me right now.

I'm trying so hard to clear my head and make sense of it all. Compartmentalizing it in my head is not working, and these countries flew by so fast that if I blink, it could have not happened. I could have been working odd jobs all summer, like I did last summer. I could have stayed at home, wondering about internships and devouring novels by the week. But I moved out of my comfort zone and stepped foot on a ship with 700 other students from all over the world. And I'm in shock.

I am having the hardest time trying to figure out what to tell my family, my friends, should they ask the dreaded question: How was your summer?

...Silence. I have no idea what to say. I'm rendered speechless. The answer that comes to mind is, "Amazing." But of course that doesn't cover even one of the places I stepped foot in. Amazing doesn't begin to describe the majesty of the pyramids, or the depth of the Adriatic Sea. Amazing doesn't cover the sunrise from Mt. Sinai, or the heart-piercing beauty of Venice. So, what kind of answer could sum my summer up?

Even my closest friends are not going to want to sit through 2,000 pictures of adventures and people they don't know. They aren't going to have the attention span to listen to my millions and millions of stories. They don't care. So, how do I put into words an experience so precious to me, this voyage of discovery and humbleness? Can I even describe it at all, to anyone who wasn't experiencing this with me?

I guess I'll find out. I'm afraid that I will have to hold everything in until it just bubbles up from my heart and spews out of my mouth in exhausted excitement to anyone within ear shot. I can't hold it all in, but I can't explain it. Not well enough, and not nearly enough at all. I'm backed into this corner of my own making, and anything that I do end up telling people won't do my experiences justice.

But I'm going to try. I'm going to use rusty words like "Brilliant", "Magnificent" and "Awe-Inspiring". I'm going to try my hardest to explain what I felt in my heart at each moment during this voyage, in countries and on the ship. The least I can do is try.