geographic location than anything else. Walking streets alone and eating dinner at tables for one -- maybe with a book, maybe not -- you're left alone for hours, days on end with nothing but your own thoughts. You start talking to yourself, asking yourself questions and answering them, and taking in the day's activities with a slowness and an appreciation that you've never before even attempted. Even just going to the grocery store -- when in an exciting new place, when all by yourself, when in a new language -- is a thrilling activity. And having to start from zero and rebuild everything, having to re-learn how to live and carry out every day activities like a child, fundamentally alters you. Yes, the country and its people will have their own effect on who you are and what you think, but few things are more profound than just starting over with the basics and relying on yourself to build a life again. I have yet to meet a person who I didn't find calmed by the experience. There is a certain amount of comfort and confidence that you gain with yourself when you go to this new place and start all over again, and a knowledge that -- come what may in the rest of your life -- you were capable of taking that leap and landing softly at least once. But there are the fears. And yes, life has gone on without you. And the longer you stay in