In March I arrived in Olomouc on a three-month study abroad excursion. The plan was rather simple: to explore Europe and enjoy myself before heading back to the United States and starting law school in the fall. Much of the three-months blew by in a blur of long lunches and late nights before I was able to ruminate on my marvelous adventure. But I learned broken Czech in a few weeks and fell in love with the Czech Republic even faster.

Now three months, 24 diverse cities, 12 different countries later, I can give a candid assessment of my time abroad.

 Český Krumlov, a small city in Southern Bohemia

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience." 

Sometime in late May, the shining sun announces that the coolness of spring has started to slide into the warmth of summer in Moravia, a region in eastern Czech Republic that straddles the borders of Poland, Slovakia and Austria. This geographically beautiful area that I have called home since early March is at its best in that glorious sun when the human eye can see clearly the vast, rolling hills and bucolic landscapes that abound. 

Moravia is a Unesco-protected heritage landscape, with historic architecture amid lush valleys and hills. 

My three months in the Czech Republic have offered innumerable moments of elation, laughter, and most of all, gratitude. 

A mere meditative blog post is not sufficient enough to provide an adequate reflection of my time in the Czech Republic but I shall give it my best. My enthusiasm, joy, and gratitude are immense, and I am simply unable to fully summarize or relate these feelings in words. One of the most persistent challenges of traveling for me is the frequent failure of language to capture its textures, emotions, and effects. Travel has revolutionized my sense of self in the world, more than I am able to write with precision.

While we were abroad, terror struck Brussels. In that moment, I had a decision to make. Here’s what I promised myself: I adamantly refuse to let senseless acts of terror affect my resolve to travel, to explore, and to keep engaging with the world at large. That is the story that we all must tell; the radical notion that we part of a single human family and that every life matters and has meaning. I believe travel opens one's eyes to the universalism of humanity, dissolves and destroys prejudices, and reminds us all of how precious our shared existence really is.

So here I am, back to where it all began: Omaha, Nebraska. I have traveled and seen more during my brief collegiate career than I ever imagined I would. And when my plane gently touched down on the tarmac amongst fields of corn in Nebraska, I was at peace. For I arrived at my favorite place in the whole world: home. 

So I will conclude with this: I hope my time abroad is, to both my readers and myself, a source of a few simple reminders: Time is limited. Life is miraculous. And mankind is beautiful. 

And so I go, closing this indelible chapter and moving onward to the next adventure. 

I think what I discovered most though is that the true beauty of life is in our fleeting moments—however majestic or mundane—because it is these simple moments that enable us to be. 

If ever I were to go abroad again, an experience more exhilarating and edifying can scarcely be imagined.

"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

A quiet farm road in Central Bohemia