That’s right. I’ve been in Vietnam for a little over a month. I’ve debated what to share here. There has been a lot to process. But I don’t feel I’m ready to tell a coherent story of my time here yet. I feel like this country is revealing itself me in tiny pieces. Layer upon layer. Not understanding really any of the language means that things tend to be mysterious in a way I haven’t experienced in a long time – not since my first trip to Germany. But even then, the rhythm and intonation of German felt familiar to me, and I picked it up quickly.

Here, I feel like a child. Everything I do requires some level of deciphering, some level of conscious effort for activities that come automatically at home, from learning to use the ATM, or my phone, to crossing the street on my own. Food can be especially confusing. I’m starting to realize that the same foods are sold just about everywhere in the city. But I still don’t know what they are. Gà is chicken. Lẩu is some kind of hotpot (but far be it for me to order one on my own – seems like something you do with a group.) Oh – and when I type lau into Google Translate, it tells me that this word means ‘wipe’ or ‘bathe’. Of course, the little symbols above the a make it an entirely different word. You see why I get confused? Or why the staff at a restaurant might look at me funny if I ask for lau gà? Am I really asking for ‘bath chicken’? I don’t know. So, while Google Translate is my friend, it can also lead me down dark alleys.

When just about everything you see, hear, taste, and smell in a day is new, you miss a lot. Sensory overload happens when your brain is trying to take in more than it can process. Any traveler can experience this, and when you travel outside of your own culture, in a place where you don’t know the language or even what foods to eat, sensory overload can come on fast.

I have a pretty good idea of when I’m overload. It comes up on me as a sudden fatigue, and a desire to go lay down. I could be walking down a street, a 45-minute walk from my hotel, with many other things on my to-do list, and I will have to make a change of plans. Too much to take in. When I was younger, I would race on to the next new thing, really not taking anything in too deeply. But I’m in a place and at a stage of my life when I want to take in things much more deeply.

I felt a bit giddy stumbling onto the little chocolate shop near the Ben Thanh Market in central Ho Chi Minh City. The tiny shop is lined with dozens of brightly packaged bars of varying choco-intensity and flavor, all sourced from a single farm in the Mekong Delta. “This one is my favorite,” says the young woman assisting me finding my own favorites. Using a pair of small tongs, she grabs a small chocolate chunk from the box of chocolate flavors displayed in front of me and drops it into my palm. I pop it into my mouth and feel the cinnamon sting my tongue. “It’s right here,” she points to the bar of cinnamon chocolate on the shelf behind me and I take one and add it to the other bars I was buying.

“For how long are you in Vietnam?” she asks in her perfect English. I tell her I’m going to live and work in Dalat for the next five months. Her eyes light up, “Oh – I love Dalat! It’s so beautiful! So many flowers – and the pine forests!” She sighs remembering her time there, and I suddenly feel excited and a little less tired than I’ve been.

It’s really easy to get caught up in visions of international travel that are more fit for cinema than real life. You know what I mean. You might see yourself on the bow of a ship, the wind whipping through your hair as waves splash the hull – and there’s a crescendo of music before cutting away to a view from above, of that same ship crossing emerald blue waters that border some dramatic cliffs or mountains of ice. Sure. Sometimes it’s like that.

But what we tend to forget is that in order to have those magic moments, we basically have to traverse a modern-day version of Dante’s hell. The hours of sitting in a tiny space where your knees get crushed when the person in front of you decides to recline their chair. The attempts to feel human by brushing your teeth in that tiny airplane bathroom, then wondering why there’s so much water on the floor. The bruised shins, twisted shoulders and smashed finger tips you get from trying to haul all your baggage around – and when you’re going to live and actually work in another country for several months, there can be a lot of baggage! Seriously, I wouldn’t pack a blazer for an international trip if I didn’t have to.