Sometimes, things just seem to click into place. My experience with tea had made it apparent that we were mortal enemies. Even the constant attempts of my English friends could not help me yield to a seemingly simple steeped cup of tea, always ending in dark and bitter disappointment. I liked tea. I wanted to like making tea. I wanted to return the favor of making tea for each time my friends had brewed me a cup, but the disaster that occurred when tea met water by my hands quickly earned me a simple pat on the head and someone else saying that they would do it. Warm tea was not something I had come to experience regularly until the summer before I started college. It was not part of my family's culture to drink tea and since I did not like coffee I became the household master of hot chocolate. Upon working with international staff at a summer camp, however, I was curious about their daily lives and since the Brits loved their tea, I was eager to see what it was all about. It was their culture, one similar yet extraordinarily different from my own, and I wanted to know as much as I could about it.

My interest in other cultures started young as my neighbors were the only Muslim, and to a further extent non-Caucasian, family in my small town. Back then, I was too young to hold a prejudice and quite lucky to grow up open-minded of others and their differences. When that family moved away, I began reading about history and mythology on my own, yearning for the constant exposure to a separate culture that I had been in contact with. Through books, I traveled to Ireland, Greece, China, the depths of the oceans, and the peaks of mountains. When I was first introduced to Washington & Jefferson, and more importantly to the Magellan Project, I found an opportunity put before me that I had never been offered before. Within the first month of my freshman year of college, I was planning what trip I would take. Through workshops, conversations, and plenty of alone time familiarizing myself with every page in a travel book, my proposal evolved until I submitted it for consideration.

Ireland. The Emerald Isle, land of the Celts, and home of the lucky was also the starting point at which I had begun my independent adventures as a child, lured by tales of fairies, giants, and magic. It made sense that my journey as an adult traveling abroad independently began at the same place. I had planned for months to go to Ireland to study both its ancient and recent history and how it affected its culture and society from both an anthropological view as well as more personal means by meeting with archeologists to discuss artifacts and learn the history through storytellers. I also intended to study the landscape and learn how it influenced the lives of the people who lived there.

As someone who planned everything in a timely fashion and always kept on schedule, it was quite difficult for me to adjust to the advice of my host and "play things by ear." Still, I attempted to relax, making reservations later than I would have liked, though my trip otherwise remained well planned out. Apparently, Ireland's national bus company had never heard of being on time. On my second trip away from my homestay and across the country to the small fishing town of Dingle, I was found running across the streets of Dublin, attempting to cover ground that usually took ten minutes in five as well as lugging around fifty pounds on my back whilst wearing my heaviest clothes and clunky hiking boots to a bus station I had never been to or else miss my only chance of arriving at my destination that day. After following my gut, running myself to exhaustion, stopping once for directions, and cursing after a bored teller informed me the next bus for my journey would be too late, I felt defeated. Then, glancing up, I caught sight of the bus I needed to be on pulling out onto the streets of Dublin. That unsuspecting moment, standing in a bus hub covered in sweat, panting, and disappointed, was the pivotal point of my Magellan trip.

Grabbing my backpack, I sprinted out to the other side of the building, not even thinking the bus may not turn onto that street, and ran into the road with a hand waving in the air in front of the bus until it stopped and let me on. It was the single most spontaneous moment I had ever had and only led to even more. My last night in Dingle was one of the best nights I have ever had and definitely one of the most influential to my project. I had met an older, Irish musician who had left after my first night and then returned out of the blue. While we had not spoken a word to each other before, that day, while the sun was still high, we found that we could not stop talking. His name was Dermit and one of his greatest loves in life was to gather traditional songs that told the history of Ireland, most of them about things that were not recorded at the time as a way of keeping the stories alive. I discovered that Irish history was best learned through its music, not storytelling, which was a great relief as I had not been able to contact the storyteller who had promised to meet with me since arriving in Ireland. As the sun set, Dermit taught me to play a traditional pigskin drum and spoons whilst he strummed on his guitar, singing me history that his grandfather's grandfather had lived. After the evening chill had set in and the stars began blinking down on us, more musicians from all over the world came to join us, the wife of one being an Irish archeologist who was all too eager to casually talk with me on the aspects of her work pertaining to the Viking era. Well into the night, Dermit brought people together with songs, switching between his guitar and endless supply of harmonicas, only breaking to either grab us a few cups of tea or dance with me as two Belgian girls played a waltz.

While my spontaneity had increased tenfold since running into a street to stop a bus, I still left the next day as planned despite the attempts to sway me otherwise by Dermit and others I had met the night before. The moment the bus left Dingle, I cried with the first jolt of the vehicle, surprised by the sudden sadness that overwhelmed me. The night before, I had clicked into place. I had clicked into Ireland, with its rich culture and people. I had clicked into music, becoming a part of something rather than standing on the outside looking in. I had clicked with Dermit, a man whose kind wrinkles, poor dancing skills, and constant teasing that I took three spoons of sugar with my tea had made me feel like I was finally meeting the family I belonged with and living in the house I was meant to be in, but had never opened the door of.

My Magellan trip was more than successful as I not only accomplished my goals, but also experienced a life that I felt I had always been meant to live. Shortly after arriving in Ireland, I had accepted tea simply because I had felt pressured and had answered too quickly. Bluffing every movement, I sipped the drink hesitantly only to find it delicious. Before, the art of tea had evaded me, but in Ireland it had just ... clicked. Now, walking the paths of Washington & Jefferson as a Magellanite offers me a perspective I lacked a year ago and it is a perspective I would never risk losing.  I am more spontaneous now and willing to "play things by ear" as well as eager to become involved in things and share my experiences where before I was all too pleased to stand back. I still make tea, several cups a day, and Dermit and I mail each other back and forth. He sends me the good Irish tea that is lacking in our grocery stores and still teases me about my need to cut back on the sugar much like a doting uncle.

Sometimes things just click into place, and thanks to Magellan, I clicked into place in Ireland.