I had always felt that I wasn’t meant for the states. But after being abroad for nearly a year, and then returning, I began to see clearly the why of that inclination, and what a life of travel did for me that American life hadn’t done.

The perfect place will never exist. And while that may seem cynical, hear me out- that’s inevitable, and it’s far from a bad thing.

I landed at Ben Gurion Airport late at night with a nearly dead phone and only the slightest knowledge of how to get into Tel Aviv.

And on my last day in the Schengen, I hauled my things onto a Ryanair flight in L'Aéroport de Marseille, and embarked on my first trip to Africa.

“What should we do while it bakes?” he asked innocently. “I think I can think of something,” I replied as I pulled him in by the waist, pressing his lips to mine.

Finally, two days before my two weeks ended, I got a response from a random listing I had answered for an au pair position, in the city of Marseille.

The air was bright with the scent of Mediterranean evergreens wafting through the slats of my shutters, and as the sun drove below the waves, the lights in the city of Nice flickered on one by one just like the stars in the deepening sky. And damn was I horny.

I realized it was coming from my apartment; I went up to find that it was my boyfriend in the bathroom. “Austin, I can’t open it. I’m stuck in here” he said through the closed door. “No you’re not, you liar,” assuming he was just messing with me. “Fine, try it.”

I suppose now is a better time than ever to explain the what, the how, and more importantly, the why I’m doing what I’m doing in the first place.