Clarissa Long is from New York and is studying at QUB for a year.

Be careful, everyone, the travel bug is in the air. Once you get the giddy head, the procrastinating spirit and the shaky legs, you’re done for. The only cure is to buy a cheap ticket to somewhere and go.

I caught it right before Easter break, but luckily, I had bought tickets a month before on ryanair.com to Porto in Portugal and Marseilles in France for the first week and a half of vacation. Make sure you get lots of sleep, go on a boat tour and get soaked by a freezing cold ocean. I suggest some alcohol, too, of course… maybe a blue coricacão drink with 7up, or a Malibu shot. As odd as it sounds, I also suggest you drop your phone in a wet bathroom and that you make sure your purse or pocket contents get caught up in the ocean and get carefully damaged. It helps you get out of control and your frustration soon becomes laugher because there is nothing you can do.

Even after three nights in Porto, I was no better. In fact, I was only feeling worse… the fizzy headache and jittery skin was just becoming more troublesome. So off I went, almost missing my flight, which gave me a great adrenaline rush (it’s great for curing the travel bug) to Marseilles. I arrived with my friend, got totally tricked into paying sixty euro for a cab ride (also helps, it increases the anger and feeling of stupidity as a tourist) and then settled in for some days at the beach with lots of sun and crusty, yet soft, French bread… and of course, meringues.

I had never travelled around Europe like this before. The only other times I had been in Europe I had either been in one country for a week or so with my parents, or I had been in France for two weeks with my French class in high school for a mini study abroad experience. On this trip, I realized just how lightly I can pack and get away with it (you really don’t need a hairdryer or multiple pairs of jeans for eight days), how food tastes best when it’s really cheap (especially a two euro bacon burger in Porto) and how fun cramped hostel rooms are when you’re with friends (it’s like summer camp all over again with bunk beds).

As is the case with every vacation, when it’s over, you have a fresher mind for going back to the grinding every day… except, luckily for me that just meant a two day break in Belfast before heading back to New York for a visit home to get over some homesickness. However, considering this is supposed to be my time of adventure, the gods didn’t let me down here, either.

A few days before I was supposed to fly back to Belfast in time for classes to start again on Monday, April 19^th, a volcano in Iceland erupted…