You’ve never questioned your sanity till you’ve sat on a plane for over 10 hours.
The nauseating smell of airplane food completely trapped around you.
Every once in awhile, if you’re lucky,
the baby two rows ahead of you will get in a bad mood and scream his head off,
your headphones aren’t drowning that one out.
The destination stays in the back of your mind,
all of this will be over,
and you’ll arrive
in Paris.

You’ve never had a shock to the system till you’ve traveled the world.
One step off the plane and the rich French accent hits your ears.
Focus and concentration is needed to understand their words.
The smell.
This sounds weird, but the air will smell foreign.
It will smell like a place you have never smelled before,
and it will linger in your nose for the rest of the trip.
Hunger.
You’ve just been surrounded by sealed microwavable food for hours,
the thought of a bag of chips is more desirable than anything.
You pull out your wallet,
set aside the Benjamin Franklin’s
and grab for the euros you ordered just before you left for this trip.

You’ve never questioned reality til you’ve been to one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Everything so beautiful it almost seems fake.
The Mona Lisa,
The Eiffel Tower,
The beautiful people filling the streets,
This is something you thought you’d only see on TV.

As days and days go by
The culture shock becomes less shocking.
You adapt to the new way of living,
Learn to love the baguettes,
Figure out how to properly say “oui.”

It’s your last day,
You start to appreciate everything just a little bit more than the other days,
You’ve never noticed the streets before,
But they’re made of cobblestone,
The cars,
Littler than a VW Bug,
The water,
Un-iced.

Back to the airport,
The states are calling your name.
Back to the plane,
Back to the crying baby and microwavable food.
Back to the smell that will linger in your nose for weeks,
Back to reality.