I've lived in Syracuse, New York, for my entire life. And I haven't really traveled many places. I've been to Florida (to visit my sister and brother who went to the University of Tampa), I've been to Connecticut (because my sister moved there after college), and I've recently been to Indiana (for the Notre Dame game). But other than New York (because I live here), those are the only other states I've traveled to.

Trust me, I have a whole list of places I want to travel (in and out of the United States). I want to go to California, and I want to go to Ireland, Italy, Greece -- the list goes on and on. I would love to drop everything the minute I graduate from college and just travel the world, seeing everything I haven't yet seen.

So with that being said, I've never been out of the United States. The only time I came close to going anywhere outside of America was when my mom traveled to Mexico when she was pregnant with me. Other than that, I've been stuck in America for my entire life. But this weekend, that changed.

My boyfriend's family (his mom's cousins) live in Montreal, Canada. Every year for Columbus Day weekend (the Thanksgiving for Canada), his family goes to visit them. This year, they invited me, and ever since I knew I was going, I've been so excited to finally go somewhere other than the United States. I was pumped.

Being in Canada for the weekend was amazing. It was definitely a different world from being in America. My boyfriend's family in Canada is Italian, so at all times this weekend, I was surrounded by a multitude of languages. They were speaking Italian to each other, French in public, and English to us. I suddenly felt like my limited knowledge of other languages (other than the Spanish I learned in high school -- that I've already forgotten) made me about as American as you could be. I knew no other language than my own.

When we went shopping in downtown Montreal (which was beautiful, and reminded me of a nicer version of New York City), it was great. I love shopping (OK, yes, I have a bit of a shopping addiction), and Canada has so many stores that we don't have in America (on top of all of the American stores as well). But every time I went to go buy something in a store or ask a question, the people in the store would speak French to me, and I would look to my boyfriend's cousin Alessia for help, having no idea what anyone was saying to me.

Other than the shopping, which I loved (and yes, mom, I bought clothes and another pair of shoes -- I'm sorry), I was also able to drink. In Montreal, the legal drinking age is 18, contrary to 21 in America (which I'm still close to a year away from). So it was nice to be able to order a drink (which came in a mason jar) with my dinner.

I'm sad that the weekend is over (and I have to go back to boring old Syracuse, where I'm legal, and I don't have a good excuse to shop). But I hope that I can come back in the future. And I hope that this is only the beginning of me seeing the world outside of America.