Experiences: they are, from a psychological perspective, at least partly what our perception of the world is made of. But even without a psychological perspective, many people would confirm that experiences are important. And some people can be very vocal about it. Yes, I am talking about all the ‘work and travel’ people that had life-changing experiences while backpacking through Australia.

The last sentence sounds significantly more shady than it is intended to be. I am not going to shame people who did work and travel in Australia and experienced a massive shift in their perception of the world. I moved to the Netherlands and experienced one. I, too, had the urge to get out of my parents’ home and out of the country.

But I am going to lose my mind the next time someone is posting a picture of a sunset with the description ’The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.’ I get it, you had a really nice holiday in Turkey this summer, please get over yourself. It is oblivious to think that you automatically become a worldly person when you have been to many places all over the world. Experiences wait behind every corner and you do not necessarily need to walk through China in order to grow as a person. You can, obviously, have a walk through China and grow as a person, but that does not mean that the person who stayed at home for one reason or another is less wise or grown than you are.

That all sounds like I don’t travel much myself. As a matter of fact, I actually do travel quite a lot. But I personally don’t think that traveling is the essence to life, although it is quite enjoyable. And as a widely-travelled fellow student of mine recently said: ’There are times to travel and times to settle down.’ That is, in my opinion, a wise sentence. Because it is true. Part of traveling is always about settling down a little, about building stability next to an ever-changing movement from one country and one experience to another.

There is probably no better song to sum all this up than The Long Road by Passenger. Memories and experiences might change our perception, but what does it matter when, in the end, there is no-one left to share it with?

Every two weeks, Antonia will add the songs she writes about to the Spotify playlist below. This way, she creates a soundtrack to her time in Nijmegen. Click left and right for more songs.

Read Antonia Leise's blogs here