This is the socially acceptable order of things: you travel in your 20s, you try on a few different identities, you "find" yourself. Then you come home and reminisce for the rest of your days.
Except that is not what happens for many of us and it is almost a relief to read a story in which complicated, quirky middle-aged people throw caution to the wind, make mistakes and learn to live with the consequences.
In Auckland writer Bridget van der Zijpp's third novel, I Laugh Me Broken, the appealingly awkward Ginny moves to Berlin - ostensibly to work on a novel about the braggadocious Count Felix von Luckner - but really to figure out how she feels about the possibility that she may have inherited the neurodegenerative disorder Huntington's disease.
She leaves her fiance Jay behind in New Zealand, clueless as to the source of her crisis, and moves into a bohemian city-centre flat with adventurous Aussie Frankie and the mysterious Florian - they only know if he is home by checking his towel in the bathroom. Ginny distracts herself with a flirtatious neighbour, language classes and some vicarious risk-taking.
"You don't go to Berlin to set up a cosy house in the suburbs and have kids," says van der Zijpp. "You go to Berlin at the point in your life that you're wanting to change. There is lots of freedom of expression, lots of subcultures. I was quite attracted to people who were doing quite rash things. You meet people and have really intense conversations and get to know them and then they disappear."