At this time three years ago, I was a naive first-year bursting with energy and curiosity. I’d heard surreal stories about how much NYU Abu Dhabi students travel in their four years, through study aways, January terms and personal trips, enabled by the famous stipend and assistantship money. My heart brimmed with excitement, a burning anticipation: what adventures would my four years bring me? And in which parts of the world? I was all set to live the NYUAD Dream, to experience this unbelievably global education in all its glory.

Before NYUAD, I had travelled a little here and there with my parents, largely within Southeast Asia, always entirely planned by them. Living in my Bombay bubble with a colonial hangover, I only ever dreamed of travelling around western Europe. But in fall break 2017 itself, I ended up in Lebanon with people I'd been friends with for just over a month.

I remember waking up at 10 a.m. after a long night bar-hopping at Mar Mikhaël — not having my parents to force me out of bed early — and walking to KB Doner in Hamra, opposite American University of Beirut. I remember the soft, fresh bread stuffed with fries, salad, sauces and succulent meat just melting in my mouth. I remember taking a sunset boat ride at Raouché, a cable car up to Harissa and road trips to Jeita Grotto, Byblos and Baalbek, having the time of my life, exploring a new beautiful country on my own terms.

Boat ride at Raouché, Lebanon. / Image courtesy of Kaashif Hajee

God bless NYUAD, I thought to myself as I booked my flight to Istanbul for spring break 2018. It was exhilarating: recruiting fellow travellers, choosing the right accommodation and curating my own travel experience around food adventures and nightlife.

In fall 2018, I went to Egypt, this time with a more ambitious itinerary. I would first go on a four day live aboard in Sharm-el-Sheikh to scuba-dive in the Red Sea, and later meet my friends in Cairo. A friend kindly offered to bring my suitcase with her to Cairo, so I didn’t have to take it with me on the boat. I gladly accepted, all set for yet another glorious trip.

But when we reunited in Cairo, this wonderful friend picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport. Our Airbnb was not what it looked like on the website; it was dusty and dirty, with no hot water and severe drainage issues. We struggled to find our way around without knowing Arabic, which the suitcase friend promised she knew, but, in fact, did not. The suitcase, non-Arabic-speaking friend also sprained her ankle amid a frenzy of harassment at the pyramids, and ended up with a fever and stomach ache on our day trip to Alexandria. It was, you could say, quite a disaster.

Two years on, however, I still have scenic pictures with the pyramids and a vivid memory of the colorful coral reefs and chaos of Khan el-Khalili market in Cairo. More importantly, I now only travel with my name labelled clearly on a noticeable baggage tag. I know now that those who’ve taken Elementary Arabic 1 cannot actually speak Arabic. And the annoying suitcase person is one of my closest friends ever, and, incidentally, my partner Editor-in-Chief at The Gazelle. Maybe the trip wasn’t so bad, afterall.

The pyramids in Cairo, Egypt. / Image courtesy of Kaashif Hajee

I went on to visit Amman, Jordan, in fall 2019. But not before spending a semester in London, surrendering to my colonial hangover and travelling every other weekend to Paris, Prague, Berlin, Rome and Amsterdam, be it by bus, train or EasyJet, living in hostels, Airbnbs and friends’ dorms. I went to Spain and Portugal for spring break, renting a car and driving from Seville and Cordoba to Granada, living every Indian’s dream after watching the famous travel drama Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

Living in London and later New York gave me a radically different college experience: one with no self-sufficient campus, but where the cold, often merciless city was my university. I had only read about these cities in books and watched them in my favorite movies and TV shows. But walking their streets — wrapped in multilayered winter clothes, of course — helped me demystify them, drawing interesting parallels to my own bustling Bombay.

If my past three years were written as a coming-of-age story, travel would be the constant thread that propelled my growth. I forged the most meaningful friendships, having to navigate each other's idiosyncrasies. I learned about new cultures, cuisines and histories, sparking sociological and political questions that I’ve pursued in my classes and beyond. I’ve carried rich and colorful stories to my family back home, who’ve lived vicariously through my adventures, feeling unexplainable joy as they saw their son accessing experiences beyond what they could ever dream of providing him.

Floating in the Dead Sea, Jordan. / Image courtesy of Kaashif Hajee

I will never forget the profound peace I felt floating in the Dead Sea with my best friends in Jordan. Or the blissful contentment walking the streets of Üsküdar in Turkey, with a belly full of Yoğurtlu Kebap and Beytimeat. I will also never forget how, just as I was starting to feel at home in New York, just three days after my friends met to plan our spring break in Puerto Rico, I had to take the first flight out to Bombay amid the escalating pandemic in March.

This year, study abroads have been cancelled. There is no J-term. There will be no travelling this fall break. This batch of naive, energetic first-years, who have heard fairy tales about NYUAD, can’t even be on campus. For some of them, coming to NYUAD may be the first time they’d step out of their home country. What about their NYUAD Dream?

And even if and when travel does open up more in the distant future, will it ever be with the same youthful, carefree nonchalance that came with it before? Perhaps all that’s left to hold onto for now is the fading memory of a doner kebab in Beirut, a cold walk on the streets of London and a lost suitcase in Cairo.