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I have a friend who only falls in love when traveling, or almost. It’s very romantic, sometimes painful—the distance, the inability to re-anchor oneself in reality—but ultimately almost logical. Because as several studies have shown in recent years, our brains don’t work quite the same way when traveling. “New sounds, new smells, a new language, new sensations, new tastes, or landscapes, trigger different synapses in the brain and can revitalize the mind,” explained The Atlantic magazine in 2015 in an article devoted to the benefits of travel on creativity. More recently, the site Lifehack reported on the work of neuroscientist Paul Nussbaum, from the University of Pittsburgh, which shows how traveling can stimulate an individual and encourage the growth of new brain connections. “Nussbaum points out that when we travel to a new place, our brains are forced to make sense of new stimuli. Which triggers the production of new dendrites [filamentous extensions of the neuron used to receive and conduct nerve impulses]." For Nussbaum, our brain "literally begins to resemble a jungle." All this to understand one thing: we are really different when we travel. This is why we can fall in love more often, differently, experience new feelings... Even discover ourselves differently. This is what happened to Matthieu, then a student, passionate about history. With a friend who shares the same interest, he decides to go to Rome. The night of their arrival, a foot, in the room of a youth hostel, will transform him.