So, the year was 2007. We had just graduated high school days before my friend’s 18th birthday. We celebrated our completion of 12 horrible years and my friend’s birthday by backpacking around Europe.

Three days into the trip, on my friend’s actual birthday, I decided to seal the deal by buying him a few beers at a pub. The first round came and we took those easy. The second round came, once again, we were champs. This continued for quite some time and things got a little fuzzy after round 6 or 7.

My next coherent memory comes to me, hundreds of miles away. My friend wakes me up outside a train station in Brussels, Belgium. 16 hours had passed since I lost contact with reality and passed out. Neither of us knew how we’d arrived in Belgium. We didn’t remember a single thing from the night before. After a few minutes of recollection, we realize that we had been robbed while we were passed out on the train. We were left stranded thousands of miles from home with nothing but 4 euros in our pockets and the clothes on our bodies. Everything else had been stolen. Not only were we stranded, but we began to feel pain. Our faces and knuckles were cut. Neither of us remember what happened there either. Read more