Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
– Helen Keller
But what if it’s a daring adventure and everything all at once?
– Yifan
December 23, 2023: While my friends in Beijing were wrapping up year-end reports and final exams, I found myself staring at the Louvre, kicking off an impromptu European adventure. The next day, I traded admiring the Mona Lisa’s smile for carving through Alpine snow!
Over the next two weeks, I time-traveled from snowy peaks to Barcelona’s sizzling New Year’s Eve, from echoes of ancient Rome to Venice’s poetic canals, and finally to Geneva’s pristine lakesides. Each city was a new chapter in my whirlwind romance with Europe, seasoned with a dash of a zero-year Ph.D. student’s perspective.
In just 18 days, I went from expertly wielding chopsticks to mastering the art of dunking croissants, from being a ski novice (菜只因) to an Alpine enthusiast, and from “你好” to “bonjour”, “hola”, “ciao”, and “grüezi” – sometimes all in one day!
This is my European express – fueled by croissants, guided by centuries-old castles, and spiced with just the right amount of cross-cultural chaos. Who knew that the journey from dumplings (🥟) to escargot (🐌) could be so thrilling?