I am a man of experience.

Buddhism tells us that in life we own nothing. Not our house, not our cars, not even our bodies, because in the end we give these things up when we die. What we do own is our experiences. There is no other person who experience the exact same things in the exact same way as we do throughout all of our lives. For me, I would much rather spend the extra money for a new experience instead of the newest phone that came out. This is why my trip to Europe was probably the most enlightening experience for me.

When I was 18, my high school was taking their semi-annual trip to somewhere in the world. For me, the idea of traveling out of the country was a feint and impossible dream. Suddenly, certain circumstances aligned, allowing me to go on this trip to Eastern Europe. The trip would be a flight to Hungary and then a bus through Poland, Czech Republic and end in Germany.

For me, Europe was a completely different world and there were many things I witnessed that left me in shock and awe, and sometimes afraid. One thing that surprised me was that just about everyone speaks English in Europe.

I was very worried about the language barrier while preparing for the trip but in the end I had nothing to worry about. Another thing is that you can buy alcohol in the strangest of places. In Poland, I found this doughnut shop that had a wall lined with hard liquor. This shop also had like the coolest underground lounge area to drink coffee, eat doughnuts and hang out. In fact, there were a lot of underground caves in Poland. I saw salt mines that was carved into a cathedral 443 feet underground.

I also really enjoyed the bath houses. This one bath house I went to had four separate baths in each corner in the room. The temperature in each bath varied in order of cold to warm to hot to almost unbearably hot. What you're supposed to do is spend a little time in each bath, building a tolerance of the heat and then when you're really hot you walk over to a bucket with a rope that pours ice cold water on you. Most people would argue that that sounds like a terrible idea but I chose to experience it five times and it felt wonderful.

Then I went to Auschwitz which was one of the most prominent Nazi concentration camps in WWII. Unfortunately, the day we went on the tour was the coldest day of our trip. It was at least five to 10 degrees outside and the trip took roughly two hours. It was also mostly outside and the parts that were inside had no installation. Honestly, I think this added to the experience because we were all so miserably cold which gave us a better idea of how miserable it must have been for the Jews who were imprisoned and killed there.

That trip was an experience that fundamentally changed my life. I only want to travel and have new experiences in other parts of the world. Traveling abroad expanded my mind and helped me realize how there really is a world of people out there living completely different lifestyles and experiencing new things. If you think about it how can someone have one life to live and not want to see the world. For me, the idea of not traveling at all in my life would be a life not worth living.