I'm not an astronaut, but I went to the International Space Station (sort of)

Usually because I'm listening to some sort of sad girl Spotify playlist, I start feeling infuriated that we may never learn the true meaning of the cosmos and become embarrassingly poetic about our isolation on Earth. I tend to ponder how strange microgravity is and begin Googling things like "what lies beyond the edge of the universe best evidence we have" and "when commercial rocket launch become same price JetBlue flight." I'm pretty sure I've lived in these clouds ever since I got past the Freddi Fish and Microsoft Paint phase of my internet literacy — but then, a month before my 30th birthday, something huge happened. On a random Tuesday, I woke up, brushed my teeth, made myself an espresso, sauntered over to the Franklin Avenue C, and went to the International Space Station. Once I got there, it was bizarre to float through the corridors and living quarters I've written about for so long as a science journalist and thought about for even longer. The walls felt lived in. The station's speed in orbit seemed a little too fast for comfort. The highly esteemed cupola — a protruding corner of the station with seven windows arranged in the shape of a daisy — was far larger than I imagined. In fact, the entire ISS was way more enormous than I can explain. Solar panels tower over you like rust-colored billboards and the station's floors threaten to collapse any second, fooling you as you gaze down at Earth. It's a little scary to be so exposed to the void of space, and that's true even when you're there in virtual reality. Yes, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your caution levels) I launched to the ISS through a virtual reality experience called "Space Explorers: The ISS Experience" shown at Eclipsio in Manhattan. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to the real thing, until of course my dream of a cheap RocketBlue economy seat becomes possible. And most importantly, I'm here to tell you that if you're ever able to do the same, you should do it, too. Here's what you'd way it works is you put on some VR glasses and follow instructions in your headset to walk a certain direction or move your hands a certain way — your "hands" in the digital world look like floating yellow outlines of hands that correspond to the movements of your actual hands. To be transparent, my glasses were a bit glitchy.