It probably wasn’t a Communist bar, but that’s what we called it. The drunkest man in the place worked for the French foreign minister, or so he said. I was sitting by the bar but could hear him all the way across the room: He was standing next to a huge, dimly lit poster of Ché Guevara. I was sitting and talking to Yemen (I don’t know how he spells his name.) He was of Algerian descent, born in Bordeaux, but now lives in Paris. We talked about everything, and then we landed on foreign policy. He seemed not to have any bias about me being an American. He let me explain myself, and we discovered that our beliefs overlapped in many places. I didn’t expect people there to take so kindly to an average American. He then asked me if I wanted some hash. I was flattered to be the first of our group, to my knowledge, to be offered illegal drugs, but I declined. He then asked if I wanted a cigarette. Our first miscommunication followed as I said I’d like a cigarette, but he went on to break me off some hash. I respectfully declined again.

That experience was one of many that shed light on how little I truly knew about the world. I don’t think any Communist bars are hidden here in Lawrence, so the idea was new to me­—I’ve lived here my whole life. I’d been around the country as well as outside of it, but Lawrence was all that I’d really known. Last winter break I started thinking of ways to escape. That same time I realized that the following year I would be a junior and halfway to being an adult. I came to college for two reasons: to get an education to become successful in this world, and more importantly, to put off making any serious decision about my life with real repercussions for at least four years. I found the European Studies summer study abroad trip fit well with my major. The program would take me to Berlin, Paris, Strasbourg, France and Brussels, Belgium.

The month-long program gave me a new way of looking at the world and my place in it. While discovering the complexities of a different culture, I had a few experiences that went a long way to quelling my fears of the future by showing me my own ignorance about the world at large.

The first couple experiences that stood out to me helped frame the hatred I had learned about in history books. We walked though side streets in Paris and Berlin, displaying some of the most striking graffiti I’d ever seen. In Paris we were specifically headed to a hidden Jewish library that. The only thing outside the place that garnered any attention was the swastika carved on its door. I hadn’t felt uneasy at any point during the trip until then. I knew that somewhere there were people who hated that building and everything inside it. Before that, we left a rabbinic seminary in Berlin and started walking towards a Jewish café that was all but around the corner. One point of interest on our walk to the café was a Neo-Nazi bar that was actually located in between the seminary and the café. These two experiences helped outline some of the tragic intricacies of a different culture. Every history-book notion I had before leaving for Europe was crushed, and that showed me how little I really knew.

I loved the differences I was discovering, but they often led to simple, honest mistakes. Nothing exemplified how misinformed I really was better than one great night in Paris. We started the night off at a wonderful French restaurant full of old rich men and their trophy wives. That incredible meal was followed by an expedition to find a club to visit. We ended up on the Champs Elysees, outside of a club called Le Queen. We were drunk and the name didn’t register as noteworthy, at least to me. I remember it was ladies night and that I drank a rather expensive vodka tonic out of what I would call a grown-man’s sippy-cup. It was a great night and a fun place, but we eventually left. We walked to a taxi stand with the Arc de Triomphe a couple hundred yards in front of us. I remember paying for the cab because everyone with me was passed out. And that was the night. The next day someone asked to borrow a guidebook of Paris to see what it said about Le Queen. The description in the book was something to the effect of, “the most happening gay club in Paris.”

I decided to study abroad after realizing that I’m terrified of the future, responsibility, and growing up. The trip taught me that I don’t know as much as I thought. Last May saw me leave petrified of the future because I was convinced there was not a place for me. I went there to learn, but the most important things I learned, I wasn’t graded on. I returned confident my place is out there because everything I thought I knew was challenged and crushed on the trip; nothing more so than my feelings about the future.