After an unexpected plot twist set my departure back a day, I was eager to start my journey through Europe and Southeast Asia. My first destination? Paris. I hadn’t even left home yet, but the world of travel was already teaching me some valuable lessons. C’est la vie. Lesson #1 — Avoid flying on a budget airline. Lesson #2 — If ignoring lesson #1, triple check your departure time, especially when the budget airline you are flying on changed the departure time by shifting it forwards almost 12 hours in a cryptic email with departure times listed without AM or PM. Lesson #3 — When you have missed your budget airline flight to Europe and need to book a last minute flight because no refunds or rescheduling, airline miles are a girl’s best friend. So, how did it feel to embark on the trip of a lifetime, one that had been several years in the making and had taken countless hours of planning? It felt a little bit like the nervous excitement on your first …