‘‘Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter?’’ The same surely in my opinion applies to tempting unseen countries delectably served up for student travel. The avenue a million miles away will always allure in a way the road you live in with its dustbins and more than slightly mad neighbours fails to. This summer I have been determined somehow to escape abroad if only to merely cement the fact that this has actually been my gap year! Somehow the fact that I have completed an art foundation course (however enjoyable) just doesn't have the same ring to it as having voyaged forth into lands unknown. Perusing countless brochures and gap year pamphlets has been an eye catching, exasperating and almost endless journey in itself. The vexation and grief leading me to callously reject yet another country - ‘I don't much like the food’ - has tantalisingly kept up the continual hope of seeking a beautiful relationship with another instead. Salvation came at the hands of my local travel shop. Instead of miserly typing in endless dream promising web sites and bringing on a fruitless headache in the process I was happily armed with pleasingly glossy brochures (glossy indicating a sure sign of a quality holiday). And so yes it seems possible that I could indeed be that girl lying on a beach apathetically. Yippee! Just desserts and pay back for having slogged away in the shop up the road for minimum wage. At the end of this week I fly out to visit both Turkey and Greece. I will arrive home refreshed and serenely calm. Never mind that I will have only have less than a week to pack for uni, learn to cook and use a public laundrette. I will not be undaunted. Rasheeda Nalumoso | 
