Last week my team went on something called “debrief.”

Now, I think for many of my friends, this might be confusing, because we throw around the debrief word to talk about the fact that we need to talk about an awkward situation later. That debrief came from the real meaning of the word, which is to go over and talk through what you’ve been learning and how you might be able to apply it and what it will look like in your next steps in life. Debrief coming from one year on stint, brings about a lot of interesting conversation - the fact that we’ve immersed ourselves in a culture that most Americans will never understand or experience. During debrief we flew from Kosice to Bratislava, met with our country director there, then took a train to Vienna (Austria), where we stayed the night, had a delicious dinner and Starbucks, then toured around Vienna (Austria) a bit before heading to Venice the next day. We flew to Venice (Italy) where we found the public transportation system to be having a strike - which we found inconvenient, in our packs, in the rain, with hundreds of angry Italians waiting for a bus. We spent the week in Venice, took some amazing pictures and were back in Kosice after a week of water, sun, and really big pizzas. ….and drumroll please, the debrief slideshow.