Going by flight times, I was in the city of Barcelona for three days, 14 hours and 40 minutes. Wait, that’s not right.

Alright, considering the fact that I got there on April 6 and left April 10, I was there five days. No, I was there longer than that.

That’s right, I was there for about two weeks. That equates to 432 pictures (159 of them Facebook worthy), one Canadian hippie and/or teacher, three rotten Spanish potatoes, a pot of cheese and pear ravioli, four bottles of Desperados beer, a Magic Fountain music, light and water show, a dozen human statues and one fancy dinner paid by Meg’s mom (Thanks Mama Reid).

It was far, far longer than the episodes of Avatar, The Last Airbender, French exam, Irish religion and myth exam and mornings spent too long in bed that made up the roughly two weeks, five days, six hours and 30 minutes I spent saving money and energy for the trip.

It’s something that happens when you travel, when you’re doing things: time travel. Something that makes certain moments better, longer, stronger in your memory so that, in the long run, they actually are longer. I mean what’s two hours on Facebook compared to your first kiss? What’s the spring of fifth grade compared to your first week of college? What’s a drunken night of mayhem if you don’t remember it?

The thing is, time isn’t measured in minutes, hours or days. It’s measured in memories, moments in time in which you can place yourself and relive. The more vivid, the more vibrant, the more you think back to look at it, the longer it is.

It’s how a good week at summer camp is longer than all the lazy days of August. It’s how one good trip to the pub – or an outdoor beer festival – is longer than the longest “Law & Order: SVU” marathon. And those things are long.

They say carpe diem for a reason. If you don’t seize it, it vanishes. And at the end of the day, the time disappears and you end up like Adam Sandler in Click, which is about as depressing as it can get.

 Time travel is little more than the magic of your own too legs – and probably your wallet, since the fun things in life are rarely free. It doesn’t take much to take time, mold it, stretch it and shape it so that a Tuesday isn’t just another day. Tuesday’s the day you and your friends got a baseball bat, a bag of potatoes and a hamburger-shaped pastry and played Exploding Food Home Run Derby on the field at your old elementary school (Note: Worth it).

Sound pretentious? Of course it does. There’s no way to say this all without sounding pretentious. That’s the thing about study abroad, people always act snobby and uptight about “their unforgettable time abroad.” But you know what’s always the same? They’re glad they did it. I’ve yet to meet someone that didn’t enjoy going abroad.

Why? Because like all good things, you can’t be going full tilt every day. Well, most people can’t. I can’t. If that’s you, go on ahead. The rest of us need our Seinfeld reruns and addictive flash games.

That’s the reality of a time machine. You can’t be using it constantly. Without a place to lay your head and tell your stories, what’s the point of doing it? To possibly write a book in the end?

There’s two costs to time travel: energy and money. After a while, it makes you tired. Not from a lack of sleep or fatigue, but from the dull. It’s the dead, long periods that make the lively, timeless periods worth it. No matter how wonderful travelling is, few things beat coming home, seeing what has changed, having double-digit notifications on Facebook and putting your feet up.

Also, travelling is expensive. I mean, really, really expensive. Seriously, unless you’re loaded, you can’t go to Germany, then Australia, then Ireland. Unless you’re the kid here that did that. But he’s loaded, proving my point.

Would I love to fulfil the stereotype of living in Ireland by going out to the pubs every night? Of course. But stuff’s expensive. I have to eat Tesco Value brand spaghetti in Cork in order to eat pizza in Rome. It’s the trade-off. It’s what makes the end result all that sweeter.

What could make standing on a cliff in Spain better than the simple thought of “Man, three days ago, I don’t remember putting pants on?” It builds the moment and also presents an excuse to not wear pants.

So, what’re you waiting for? Hop in your time machine. What’s wrong? You’re sitting on it. Just make sure to be lazy – pants or no pants – before you go.

Nick O’Malley is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].