The Nostalgia of Travel: Ineffable

There are simply no words to describe the feeling of nostalgia for the first day of a trip. It's ineffable.

After sitting at home for weeks on end, you begin to long for the days when you were traveling and experiencing the world. You pull out your phone and look back at the photos and videos you took. You find yourself longing for that feeling again.

Except there isn't necessarily a way to describe that longing. You know that it would never be the same if you returned to that moment. You know you didn't appreciate that moment to the absolute fullest while you were there, living it.

After a 20-hour travel day, I found myself in the encapsulating city of Montmartre. I remember feeling woozy, disembodied. I couldn't wrap my brain around the fact that just 24 hours earlier, I had been sitting in my apartment in Bloomington, Indiana, and now I was climbing the steep cobblestone steps in Paris.

I've watched the video back a million times. In fact, I remember the moment I found it.

A month or so after returning home from my week in Europe, I was working on my final video project for the class that had taken us there.

As I scrolled through the millions of videos our professor had taken that first day, I stopped in my tracks. I forgot entirely about the project I was working on and was transported back to that moment.

My classmates and I walk across the screen in a single file line as the sun rises behind the skyline of Paris. All of us are bundled up in coats as the morning chill coated the city. We are all laughing and talking as we follow behind our tour guide.

I remember not believing that moment was real. After all those years of fantasizing about traveling and seeing the world, I couldn't believe that I was finally there, staring out at the most astonishing view.

I remember one of my classmates stopping me and telling me to look at him. He raised his camera and took a picture with the entire city of Paris behind me.

I remember walking into the Sacré-Cœur and being left speechless. In fact, I was breathless.

I remember trying to order in French for the first time and absolutely butchering it because I have never taken a day of French in my life.

I remember how rewarding that egg and cheese croissant felt after the embarrassment flooded my body after said failed attempt at ordering.

I remember every second of that moment and that day, despite the mass amounts of jetlag coursing through my body.

Yet, throughout that whole day, it never occurred to me that I would never be able to return to this moment again. I would never be able to relive that feeling, the feeling of your first day in Europe.

I have watched that video back more times than I can count. Every time I get this sinking feeling in my stomach. I long for that feeling.

Yet, when I walked off the plane in Prague, Czechia, I didn't even think about that feeling.

I once again was focused on the moment in front of me.

I know that I thought to myself that this was the beginning of the best adventure of my life. I know I thought the next two months would be months I looked back on for my entire life. Yet it never once crossed my mind that I would be looking back on that day, that moment, and longing for that feeling again.

Prague was so much different than Paris. Both were exciting in their own ways, but with Paris, it was the first time I had ever stepped foot out of the country. I knew everyone I was with and had spent the last three months sitting in a classroom with them. I knew my professor and precisely what every day would look like as we had a set schedule.

Whereas, in Prague, I met everyone once and for a very brief 30-minute meeting. I had no idea what our days would be like other than our three-hour class time. And I always had the looming knowledge that at the end of the three weeks, I would be on my own to backpack Europe with only the cities planned out.

I can recall walking through the warm summer air on our way to dinner, all of us trying to get to know each other. I remember joking with others who, at the time, I had no idea how much they would mean to me.

It's a hard pill to swallow, knowing you can never return to that moment again. You can never experience something as unique and life-changing as that was. Realizing you didn't appreciate how special those moments would be. Knowing you didn't take every second in as much as you could have.

Our last night in Prague

Yet, that's what makes those moments so special.

We can't know how momentous those moments would be; otherwise, we would never live in the moment. We can't know if they are coming or the anticipation would eat us alive. If we know that those moments will come around again, we will spend the rest of our lives searching for them, most likely letting them pass us right by.

You have to believe and hope another moment like that will occur. I believe I am lucky to have had experiences that make me long to relive them. Moments that bring tears to my eyes, just remembering how perfect they were.