Tatiana Hall

Freshman year my parents got a divorce. It wasn’t messy, or dirty, but all divorces affect teenagers relatively the same- devastated. Not even a year later, my mom was already remarried to my stepfather, and needless to say, I was not his biggest fan at first. As the months went by though my stepfather and stepsister became two of my best friends that have taught me more than I could have ever know, possibly the most important piece of information I have learned yet. They taught me how to learn. Not to learn about science, or how to write, or how to solve equations, they taught me how to learn about everything else in life- by traveling the world. I had never left the country until my sophomore year when my stepsister convinced me to go backpacking through Guatemala with her; I don’t know how she convinced my fearful heart into this but she managed to. “Wow that trip changed my life”- 99% of people who have ever gone on a mission trip or a vacation out of the country. I never understood the extent that one trip could have on someone until then. I learned how blessed I was to have a roof over my head, and shoes on my feet, I learned how lucky I was to have any sort of education, and to be able to attend school rather than work all day. I learned about the Latin American culture, and their language. But above all, I learned how much traveling could teach us. “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us”- has now become my quote to live by. Since sophomore year traveling has become my biggest, and easily, my most expensive hobby. I find myself going to school, and working more than I should, until I have enough money to buy a plane ticket and a week or two of hostels to my next destination. From Guatemala to Costa Rica to Panama, back to Costa Rica, to Morocco, to Spain, to Portugal, to Nicaragua, back to Costa Rica, to throughout the United States, and then back to Costa Rica one last time- my favorite part through it all is no matter where I travel I always learn something new.