Study abroad is a time for young Americans to explore the world, grow, and gain perspective on their lives. It's a time to imbibe a new culture, a new history, and a new language without barriers, without interruption, without retreat. It's a time to experience new foods, both delectable and horrifying, new problems, both revelatory and infuriating, and a new approach to the world, both inspiring and confusing. It's a time for continuous edification for the betterment of a fresh young mind. And it's a time to learn how to become a more complete, and, hopefully, mature person.

At least that's what we read in the brochures.

The reality of study abroad is that it's a time for students to get away from their parents as far as humanly possible. (In turn, the parents automatically have an excuse to visit. Ha!) It's a time to hook up with foreign men and women who wear tight jeans and roll their R's and more. It's a time to laugh at the shameless advances foreign men make on your female friends. ("Signorina, don't go away! I want finish first!") It's a time to explain yourself to police in a foreign language. ("I-a don't-a want-a to-a go-a to-a jail-a!") But, most of all, it's a time to get blitzed on wine and get college credit for it.

That's right. You can get college credit for drinking alcohol. And it's great. "How is this miraculous feat of higher education achieved?" you're asking yourself. I have two simple words for you: Wine tasting.

Wine tasting is your ticket to laudable inebriation. Sophisticated and almost legitimate, wine tasting is the essence of study abroad. The excuse of learning is omnipresent, but the undercurrent of hidden delights leads the way to glory. And glorious it is. Just think about how many community leaders and business luminaries attend wine tastings. Being able to schmooze with the best isn't only practical for being successful in life; it's also necessary. So, in a way, taking a wine tasting class while abroad provides you with an entry pass to high society and instant cultural appeal in job interviews. You should get business credit for this class. But until that day comes, we can be happy with our lowly nutrition credits.

Although, it does depend on which institute of higher learning you attend. Not all universities accept wine tasting as fulfillment of your three-credit nutrition requirement, even in the face of the recent surge of articles written about the salutary effects of beautiful Bacchus juice. But even if your school won't recognize this high-minded pursuit of gustatory and olfactory edification, don't worry about it! You're going to study in Florence, or Rome, or Venice, or wherever. Classes are just an excuse to be there. Take advantage of what's available to you. You may never have the opportunity again. Just make sure when you're signing up for these wonderful classes you're aware of when they're held. Don't do what I did.

For my study abroad program in Florence, I ingeniously signed up for wine tasting on Tuesday mornings, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. On the first day of class, our professor, a local wine merchant with an aquiline nose and scruffy beard who practically snorted his wine to take in its fragrance, informed us that after learning about one or two of the 20 wine regions in Italy we'd be tasting around 13 different wines every class. Even with tasting portions this amounted to at least two full glasses before lunch. "Eat before you come to class!" our professor exhorted. He also urged us to use the spit buckets provided when we tasted the wines, but this was met with grumblings of "I'm not paying to spit it out!" To which he replied: "Then you'll be too drunk to get up the staircase and you won't be able to leave." He had a point.

The classroom was in the basement of the school, dim and dusty, and only accessible by a rickety spiral staircase that was reaching the end of its functional life. There were four heavy wooden tables with matching benches thrown together like mismatching puzzle pieces, too big to be assembled in their own box. It was a space that could have been used as a dungeon by the Medici; if not it was a missed opportunity. Although the thought of navigating that cramped space towards the odious staircase gave us pause before swallowing, in the end we all decided it was worth the risk.

The class proved to be surprisingly difficult. This was because it wasn't based on traditional learning; it wasn't number crunching, quoting the great authors, or memorizing dates and facts. This class was about acquiring a skill in distinguishing subtleties between flavors and fragrances at a level of accuracy we had never been able to distinguish, nor cared to distinguish, before. For our first tasting we were presented with a glass of red wine and told to swirl the glass, stick our noses inside, and sniff the wine. "What do you smell?" our professor asked us. Everyone stared at the table or towards the back of the room. Silence. Finally he called on some unlucky soul. He asked the question again: "What do you smell?" The guy sat there for a moment thinking intensely. Then he had his answer. "Grapes." Everyone laughed. "OK. Very good. We all know wine is made with grapes. Can you be more precise?" The guy thought again. "Red... grapes... Aged... red... grapes?" There were more chuckles from the group. Our professor sighed and stuck his hooked nose deep into his glass, practically submerging it in the wine. "I smell fresh red roses, ripe strawberries, dried cherries, burnt toast, dark chocolate, cinnamon, roasted coffee, leather, oak, and fennel seeds. Now, what do you smell?"

We eventually learned what to say to placate our professor when he asked us what we smelled. Standard answers for red wines were red roses, cherries, raspberries, red apples; any dark fruit or flower was safe. White wines were the opposite: white roses, peaches, bananas, green apples. He would get happy when we answered correctly, but then, encouraged by the answer, he would press us for details and tip the scale. "What kind of red rose do you smell?" "Fresh!" we guessed. His smile would fade and his shoulders would drop. "No, it's dried."

Our traditional learning faltered as well. On the midterm we were asked to name the predominate grape used in Tuscany. The results were disastrous. Many of our phonetics were in the right place, but our spelling of the popular grape pointed to something much different. "There is no Saint Giovese!" our professor cried, pleading with us to understand him. People looked confused. He elaborated: "There is San Giovanni and San Ginmignano, but there is no San Giovese!" Blank faces stared back at him. He wrote it furiously on the board. 'Sangiovese.' Then he turned back to us with blood rushing to his face, "San means saint. Sangiovese is one word! Sangiovese is the grape! There is no grape saint!"

Hence my B in wine tasting. And while this B is the lowest grade I received throughout my collegiate career, I remember no class more fondly, nor more clearly than I do wine tasting. No class I talk about excites people more than this; almost everyone loves to travel and drink. Wine tasting in Florence gave me both. And I can't think of a better way to get through college.