My son is in Japan on business. I’m simultaneously happy and worried. He’s been to Mexico but it’s not quite the same. He didn’t have to do the international flight thing. He was just a little guy when my parents took him and his sister down to Nogales.

I flew across the ocean for the first time in 2005. My husband and I went to London and Paris for our 30th wedding anniversary. It’s one thing to be immersed in the culture of another English-speaking country. It’s a whole other story if that cultural immersion is in another language.

I was so nervous and fearful about everything before we left. In London, those negative feelings quickly turned into WOW!!! The wow part started that first night in London when we walked into a pub.

Everything I saw turned into a wow. A pub, wow! A pint, wow! Big Ben, wow! Westminster Abbey, wow! The wow totally took control of my brain until we boarded a plane to Paris.

The fear and anxiety came back. Partly because it took me a minute to figure out how to open the bathroom door … on the plane … and we weren’t even in Paris yet!

It took a little bit longer for the wow to come back. It seemed like nothing short of a miracle that we made it from the airport to our hotel on the Paris subway. It’s challenging to find your way when you don’t have a map and the signs are in French!

Later in the evening, we negotiated the subway again because Ed really wanted me to see the Eiffel Tower at night.

The moment we emerged from the subway stairs and I saw the Eiffel Tower, the wow took over again.

I want my son to experience the wow during his short two-week stay in Japan. It’s a business trip and I know his schedule his full but if he’s open to it … the wow only takes a second.