Current Location: Sitting on my deck overlooking Puget Sound I am leaving the States in less than 48 hours and have not placed one single item into my bags. Period. As my current location suggests I am not in a hurry to do so at the moment. Life this summer in Seattle has been a crazy hectic time frame. With graduation from college to working full time at Nordstrom, not having any clue as to what I would be doing after said graduation occurred. For me I enjoy not knowing what is going to be happening next in life. There is certain spontaneity to that and I fully expect to stay like that for the rest of my youth. It is hard for me to think about leaving for Switzerland, crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the ... read more

I can't believe how long it has taken me to finally write this blog, one month after I was actually in Holland to be exact. The only excuse I have is that I have been experiencing a mixture of embarrassment and foolishness. A combination that has postponed me from putting this on the Internet, but I know has to be a part of my travel blog that would include almost everything that I have done while living abroad. Although I am no longer living in Italy and currently am writing this from the comfort of my home watching the snowfall outside, it hasn't stopped me from thinking about the weekend I spent in the most liberal country I have ever traveled to. A country that takes such a relaxed view about life that it allows its ... read more

Another weekend, another trip, this time to the north where wild beasts control the waters and stone circles dot the landscape. It could only be one country, Scotland. Land to some distant relatives I will never meet but share a common name, McCollum my other middle name. Although I found out that it is actually spelled differently there, Macullum. This was a completely unplanned vacation, buying my tickets on Ryan-air two weeks before going since they cost nothing, literally nothing. Originally my plan was to go alone but I soon found myself a willing partner in crime, Caroline. She and I had yet to travel anywhere together so it was an unexpected pleasure to have her with me. The actual trip was short, only Thursday to Saturday since my mom was going to be arriving in ... read more

Football Probably the only word that once spoken evokes emotions in most people of the western world, whether good or bad connections with this sport, it has a great impact on the European countries. Coming from the states where American football is more popular than soccer, it is still hard for me to grasp how a sport can affect people so much. From the bars men watch each game religiously, where should their team win they will proceed to shout in the streets with happiness. However should they be the losers, it is blamed on everything and typically the men that follow the team are generally in poor moods for a few days. The thing that probably bothers me the most here in Italy, is that sports are considered Masculine, and therefore are only for men, ... read more

It was difficult to ever imagining leaving Paris, the city that had just begun to feel like home. However I had wanted to visit Mont Saint Michele, after seeing it in a travel book many years ago I knew that if I had the chance I should see it. So on our last full day in Paris, Katherine and I found a travel agency and booked tickets to Saint-Malo and our return ticket to Florence. Unfortunately there is no other direct train to Florence from France, except through Paris. We had originally wanted to go to Nice and get back to Italy that way, but of course there was yet another strike going on in Italy, possibly the only thing you can always count on to happen on time. So our dreams of seeing the South ... read more