Sky diving, attending the Super Bowl, or meeting a celebrity are all over the top, exhilarating, and unexpected events people may experience in life. Though they are exciting, does an event being large and out of the ordinary make it that much more memorable? As for me, I believe the little things in life are the more remembered and cherished events.

During the summer of 2012, I was fortunate enough to experience my first travel overseas. I traveled with my mother and grandmother— from past experience could be good, bad, or ugly depending upon our mood of the day-- and our destination was France. It was exciting to see new country and a completely different lifestyle from my own. Walking the tight, winding brick roads of Paris and seeing all the famous monuments like the Louvre and the Arc De Triomphe was a truly amazing experience. It was great to embrace a new culture and see what other parts of the world have to offer. Though many may think walking down the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles or climbing all the way to the top of the grand Eiffel Tower are the experiences I cherished the most, this isn’t the case. The moment I remember and cherish the most was sitting at an outdoor café with my grandmother. We took a midnight stroll through one of the most beautiful cities in France—maybe even the world-- and decided to stop for gelato. As we licked our exotic flavored ice cream, I remember the pure happiness of the moment. I slipped my arm through my grandmother’s and enjoyed her company while overseeing the wonderful nightlife. A passerby and those who I tell the story to may think it was just two people eating ice cream, but it was so much more than that. After years of dreaming and planning to make this trip, it finally happened. It was no longer a dream but a wonderful reality I shared with one of my greatest role models. It was the simplest event we did on the trip, but it held the most meaning. It was a little thing, which symbolized the great event my grandmother and I experienced together. She taught me to set goals in life and not to be afraid of new experiences. Realizing all we had accomplished created more dreams and aspirations to travel to new places. By the simple task of eating ice cream, I realized it didn’t matter if I visited the most famous places in France. What mattered is what I learned from the experience and the importance of dreams and who you share them with in life. Though I may not remember everything I did on the trip, I will always remember my grandmother’s smile as her dream of us together in Paris came true.

The big and flashy events in life aren’t always the most important. It is important to realize the little things in life and cherish them for what they mean. It does not matter what anyone else thinks, the littlest aspects in life can be the largest of importance.