Have you ever wondered what it would feel like for your parents to move you to a foreign country at the age of sixteen? Shelby Lewis knows exactly what it’s like. At the age of sixteen, her mom decided to move out of their home town in Missouri and go on a journey, living abroad in Panama.

Before studying abroad in Amman, Jordan in the fall of 2012, my last moments in the United States were spent at the McDonald’s in the Pittsburgh International Airport. Now I am not a big fast food person, but I felt like I needed to absorb as much American culture as I could before leaving the country.