Since I’ve returned from my semester abroad, people often ask me things like, “John, did Europe change you?” or “John, are you still the same dude that you were before?” These, of course, are reasonable questions. After all, Europe is a place filled with remarkable cultures and storied histories; it’s not surprising that one might venture to the continent and come back a changed man.

But, for the most part, I think I’m still the same guy I was before. I still bleed Hoya blue. I still love TBS’s “Cougar Town.” I still love going to industrial death metal concerts. However, there is one major way in which Europe changed me: I finally get blacking out.

Now, of course, before I went to Europe, I blacked out plenty of times. But there’s just something so different — dare I say, magical — about blacking out in a foreign country. I’ll tell you right now, you haven’t lived until you have wandered the streets of Paris completely wasted, with the Eiffel Tower shining bright in the distance. You can’t truly say that you have no regrets in life until you pass out under the vaulted ceilings of one of Rome’s great cathedrals. And your life isn’t truly complete until you’ve washed down four shots of grain alcohol with a mixed drink and staggered unsteadily along the beaches of Ibiza.

I can’t exactly put my finger on what made blacking out in Europe so incredible. Was it the sights, the sounds, the foreign people looking on with a mix of curiosity and disgust? Who’s to say? But what I do know is that when I had had that one extra shot and could sense myself tumbling into the depths of a blackout, I felt alive in a way that you just don’t get in America.

And I have to say, having experienced all that blacking out in Europe has to offer, all I want now is to broaden my horizons and travel the world, blacking out at all the beautiful sites this planet has to offer. I want to get sloshed on the peaks of Kilimanjaro. I want to drunkenly relieve myself on the polished, dry-stone walls of Machu Picchu. Damn it, I want to consume a tub of Chinese rice wine and vomit over the side of the Great Wall!

But, alas, those adventures must wait for another time. I have an undergraduate education to finish here at Georgetown, and so I must resign myself to a blacking-out experience that has its moments but ultimately can’t compare to what I experienced abroad.

And so, my fellow Hoyas, I call upon you to travel abroad and black out in as many foreign countries as you can! It doesn’t matter where. All that matters is escaping the confines of American society and experiencing something new and different. Trust me, when you’re lying on the floor of your youth hostel, bloodied and bruised from an intoxicated run-in with some uncooperative policemen, you’ll understand what makes blacking out in a foreign country so special.

Nowadays, my friends will come to me on weekend nights, their red cups and cheap vodka in tow, begging me to get drunk with them, and I just laugh. I indulge them, sure, but in my heart, I know that it will never compare to the experience I had last semester. Let me tell you, folks: You haven’t really blacked out until you’ve done it in a foreign country.