“Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect”

An old soul goes hand in hand with a bit of nostalgia. Today, I got nostalgic for my travels abroad in college.

I had lunch in the most darling French cafe here in Sarasota. I was big-bear hugged by the romantic sounds of the French language as I entered Cest La Vie. The entire wait staff was speaking French to one another. I was charmed by their accents as I ordered my crepe.

On the menu for breakfast, there was a pretty standard French breakfast option: a baguette, butter and jam.

This made me smile.

During my travels abroad, I spent only three days in Paris. We stayed in a two-star hotel (a major step up from the hostels we had become accustomed to). Each morning they served us warm baguettes with real butter and orange marmalade. Heaven. It was so simple and so delicious.

It’s funny how reading a silly little menu item can take you back.

Another memory that came to mind was a bit of advice my Norwegian teaching professor gave us upon our return to Norway after our journey to Italy, France and England. We were chatting about all of the beautiful things we saw. Water gardens outside of Rome. David in Florence. Notre Dame in Paris. Westminster Abbey in London. We also started in on how naturally beautiful Norway was.

After politely listening to our excited travel chatter, our professor reminded us of something important. She said, “Don’t forget about the United States. There is so much beauty in your country. You Americans take it for granted. Promise me you will seek out the beauty in your own country when you return.”

When I returned to the U.S., I made it my mission to do just that. I have traveled to pretty much every major city on the West coast: from San Diego to Seattle. From the central coast of California and the beauty and splendor of such places like the Hearst Castle, the San Francisco Bay and Napa Valley to the magnificent shoreline of the Oregon coast. I have hiked the Grand Canyon and the less intimidating, but nonetheless just as beautiful Shenandoah National Park. I have found beauty in the middle of Washington D.C. and New York City. I have found it on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis. It is there in the sleepy beach towns of the Outerbanks in North Carolina, and I have definitely found it on the Gulf coast of Florida. It is most certainly in Columbia, Missouri. I even saw it for a brief moment in Louisville, KY. I found it in the Southern charm of Charleston and Savannah. It was there in the Smoky Mountains as I passed through Tennessee, and I caught a glimpse of it in Charlotte.

Yes, the United States is a beautiful country, and I will most likely live here for the rest of my life, and I probably still won’t see everything here that is considered beautiful.

But I’m getting itchy. Itchy to travel overseas again. The tiny spark that fuels my passion for travel and adventure abroad is getting bigger and bigger as time passes.

I think this new internal nagging has a lot to do with appreciation. I am older and wiser (questionable ), so I think I would appreciate the experience more this time around. Getting out of the country would also make me appreciate the beauty that surrounds me. Recently, I have found that sometimes I don’t always notice it, and that makes me kind of sad :p.