Studying abroad is like jumping off the pages of a favorite novel and experiencing the hodgepodge of images that have been left for us to form ourselves, or so I would imagine. I have never been abroad physically, although my mind has been there many times. I have made predictions about what it would be like to walk the English countryside, cross the Galway Bay to the Aran Islands and even dodge bullets in Kabul during the Soviet invasion. The way I see it, what good is a prediction without a means of verification? The more I read, the more I long to be immersed in the culture of my favorite characters from world literature. But this is only the spark that ignited the fire.