#1 Prologue

The beginning of a journey

We are made to believe, by books and movies and everything and everyone else, that travel is life changing. It's all "eat-pray-love-ing" and Hector searching for happiness and Woody Allen making Paris look perfect. 

It's easy to assume that our expectations will meet up with reality. That the Colosseum will be just as big as it looks in the pictures and Paris will be as quaint and golden as it is on TV. And, these days, it's hard not to have expectations about almost everything. 

That's certainly true of me.