Arianna O'Dell

Last week I just got back from a trip to Europe. This was my fourth trip to Europe over the last few years. Each time I have returned, I am met with the same response from friends and family.

“You’re so lucky.”

“I wish I could do that!

“I could never afford to do that..”

There is nothing that makes me sadder than hearing phrases like this. Anyone can travel. There are no excuses on why you can’t get your passport, hop a plane, and have the experience of a lifetime.

What are the excuses I’ve heard that cause people to never leave the country?

I don’t have the money for a flight.

Yes you do. For the past four years, between college and living expenses I have lived off around poverty level. (That said – I’ve managed to live great!) I had all the money I needed to put a roof over my head, eat well, and take amazing trips. Travel is not as expensive as you would think. I have not bought a plane ticket to Europe (round trip) for over $800 ever. This last trip, I found a ticket to London for only $432 dollars. There are so many great deals out there – you just have to look a bit harder. And to get you started, here’s a post for you on how to find these tickets.

I don’t have a passport.

Okay, go get one. For $140 dollars you can have your very own. This little book was the best purchase of my life. If you break down the cost over 12 years it costs you about 0.038 cents per day. For less than a penny a day, you can have 10 years of freedom to move about the world. For a college student or someone working paycheck to paycheck $140 is a lot of money – I completely understand. Once you take you’re first international trip – you’ll see it was worth it.

I don’t have anyone to go with.

The first time I had planned to leave the country, I had a friend planning to go with me. As the trip got closer, I never heard back from her. Silence. Since I had already bought my ticket, I decided… “who cares?! I’m going to go anyways.”Guess what? It was scary as hell. Prior to that trip I had never been to the airport by myself, I had never been on a plane by myself, and I didn’t know anyone in the whole country I was about to enter. It gets easier. Yes, it’s scary at first – but after about a day you feel comfortable, you loosen up, and you have the time of your life. There are tons of resources available for those traveling abroad. From finding new friends on Twitter, to Couchsufing – you don’t have to go the trip alone.

I can’t take time off from work.

If you have a job that doesn’t let you take even a week off during a year – you’re at the wrong job. With only a week, you can easily take a trip abroad.

I have nowhere to stay.

For anyone on a budget or traveling alone – hostel are a great options. From hostels, I’ve managed to keep my expenses low and make some amazing friends. I personally recommend HostelBookers for finding some great deals in amazing locations. If you’re even braver, CouchSufing is another option. CouchSufing is a global community of people willing to give travelers a spare bed or couch. In the past, I have hosted travelers and been hosted while in foreign countries. This site has given me some great friends and many once in a lifetime experiences.

I’ll travel when I’m older.

If you get hit by a bus tomorrow and die, traveling dead is going to be really tricky. Life is SHORT. You have no idea how many days you have left on this planet. If you want to travel – find a way to do it. There is no telling what your tomorrow may bring.

Women can’t travel alone.

Yes they can. The news is great at telling scary stories. For this reason, I worry my mom every-time I go abroad. (Whoever it was that told her to watch the movie, Taken, please let me know so I can punch you) If you watch your surroundings and stay smart – you’ll be fine. In all the international trips I’ve taken (while travelling alone) the worst that has happened was I got rude cat calls. You just brush it off.. and if that doesn’t work… the F word and the finger is pretty universally understood.

In the future, I plan to do as much traveling as I can. There are so many beautiful, wonderful places out there. You just have to hop a plane to see them. If you have any reasons on why you can’t travel, let me know in the comments and I’ll help you figure out how you can.

Oh yeah, and let’s be friends on Twitter?

Moving to a new city is the easiest thing in the world.

PSYCH!

Moving to a new city is hard. New friends, new customs, new scenery, new everything.

This past month, I left Seattle and am currently living in León, Spain. This is my first extended stay in a non – English speaking country. So far it’s been amazing, frustrating, fun, lonely, and emotionally draining all at the same time.

Moving is always hard. Goodbyes are tough. Tears are shed. Then you’re gone..

The next day you hop a plane, pop some sleeping pills, and find yourself in a entirely new place. You know no one.  You don’t know how the city works. You get lost. You question your judgement for picking up and leaving your comfortable life.

But then it all gets better.

During my first few weeks in Spain, I was incredibly homesick. I longed to be with my friends at a pub on Friday night. I missed my fatty American sized coffees. I missed having entrepreneurship events to attend.

After having a pity party for a few days I realized “I can do that all here!”

“I can make friends.” – I just have to try a bit harder.

“I can go to entre events.” – I just have to find them.

“I can have 20oz coffees here” – I just need to order 4 coffees instead of 1

I just have to be proactive about it.

Making friends :

No one likes to be alone. No matter how tough you are, at the end of the day, everyone needs a friend. Making friends isn’t always easy. Personalities don’t always align. Not everyone will get your jokes. If you are sitting alone in a room, chances are people aren’t going to come up to you and say “Hi, I could use a new friend! Let’s be BFF forever!” YOU have to make an effort. YOU have to start conversations. YOU have to put yourself out of your comfort zone. This isn’t easy. Hell, it’s extremely hard to go up to random strangers and start a conversation. As hard as this is, I’ve been forcing myself to do it. Result :

I met some awesome people already!

Adjusting to cultural norms :

They say adjusting looks something like this :

From siestas to eating dinner at 10pm at night, Spain is very different than the United States. I’m a city girl at heart and the jump to a small town has been the biggest adjustment for me. Everything is slower than what I’m used to. If you know me, you know I talk a million miles a minute and drink coffee instead of sleeping. Leon has been different. I sleep at night here. I’m not stressed. THIS was the biggest adjustment for me. I love being stressed – as crazy as that sounds. I love being busy. I love having too many events to go to. I love not sleeping. (Okay, that last one is a lie.)

Fortunately enough, through Twitter, I found a lot of people who have eased the adjustment. From giving me music recommendations, to telling me about social media events – the Internet is a freaking amazing tool to find people and events of interest. Gracias amigos!

Language barrier :

I’ll come right out and say it – my Spanish isn’t very good. Though I’ve taken Spanish classes in school, my speaking ability has a long way to go. I feel embarrassed when I talk. I get frustrated. I don’t know what things mean. It took me 10 minutes today to try and figure out how to explain that I don’t like spicy food. (Picante – for future reference.) With anything in life, practice makes perfect. Over my next two months here, I will continue to practice and learn more each day.

Though the pace of life is different than Seattle, I’ve slowly gotten myself accustomed to the city. I’ve joined a gym, I’ve found a good coffee shop, and am finally getting accustomed to living here. It only gets easier from here.

Thank you to everyone that’s helped me out since I’ve been here. You are the best!

Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. I have officially been back in Seattle for 6 months after last year taking a summer long excursion through Europe. I’m going stir crazy.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is the ultimate example of a re-brand.

What is Leavenworth?

Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, United States. It is part of the Wenatchee–East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,074 at the 2000 census. The city struggled until 1962, when the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee was formed to transform the city into a mock Bavarian village to revitalize its economy.[3] Owen and Pauline Watson, owners of a business on Front Street, formed the committee after visiting Solvang, California in 1958 and thought it was an excellent idea for Leavenworth.

Leavenworth is home to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, which opened in 1995 and contains more than 5,000 nutcrackers dating from prehistoric to modern.[4] Leavenworth’s annual Oktoberfest celebration is claimed to be one of the most attended in the world outside Munich, Germany.[5] Leavenworth’s transformation into a theme town was inspired, and assisted, by Solvang, California. Later the Washington town of Winthrop followed Leavenworth’s example and adopted a town theme.[6] – Wikipedia

Translation : It’s a tourist area for older people. This marketing campaign is brilliant. They made Leavenworth sexy! Totally flipped my perception of the place! I want to go.

Nicely done. Check out Leavenworth !

One more day left of my constant traveling – it has been quite a ride. The trip has definitely had it’s ups and downs but it has been quite an experience; surely one I will never forget. Though I completely wiped my savings, it was definitely worth it.

Starting off!

London, England – 4 months
Loved: Everything – I absolutely LOVE every single person I met during my time spent there. The tech events, chilling in parks, pints at the pub, I have so many wonderful memories of London and I will most definitely be back. I’ll miss you all so much! Come visit me in Seattle!
Hated : Leaving. I love London more than anywhere I have ever been.
Learned : Football is awesome, the British are awesome, and cider is awesome.

Barcelona, Spain – 1 week :
Loved: Riding on the back of a motor bike to see the city.
Hated : Having to tell lots of creepy old men to “fuck off” wherever I went.
Learned : It is really helpful to know other languages. My Spanish came in handy.

Dublin, Ireland – 3 days :
Loved: The accents *sigh*
Hated : Being stranded by the ash cloud
Learned : Guiness is nasty.

Paris, France – 1 week
Loved : Meeting @AndruEdwards family and making a cool new friend from couchsurfing!
Hated : Getting separated from a friend and having to stay in a creepy hotel by myself.
Learned : To carefully choose a travel partner or you’ll end up having problems.

Milan, Italy – 4 days
Loved: Eating gelato and pizza everyday.
Hated: Being sweaty and gross.
Learned : More about my heritage, that Italians are really friendly, and that gelato is delicious.

Venice, Italy – 3 days
Loved: Eating more gelato and pizza, riding down a canal, and meeting cool people at the hostel.
Hated : Absolut Venice aka Absolute Crap (the hostel).
Learned : That Venice is basically a tourist trap -from the $125 boat rides to other overpriced attractions it can be pricey.

Florence, Italy – 5 days
Loved : My day trip and 7 hour hike through Cinque Terre – one of the best things I’ve ever done.
Hated : A crazy gypsy lady attempting to pickpocket me.
Learned : Meeting people is easy if you make an effort and that many travelers had even worse horror stories than me.

Nice, France – 3 days
Loved : Meeting two cool girls from Ireland at the hostel, going to Cannes, and laying on the beach.
Hated : Being exhausted from prior traveling.
Learned : That not wearing sunscreen and then laying on the beach for 6 hours is a bad idea.

Brussels, Belgium – 4 days
Loved: The chocolate, visiting nearby cities, and drinking every single kind of Belgium beer the bar had to offer.
Hated: The shower in the hostel.
Learned : That I would not mind living in Brussels.

Rotterdam, Netherlands – 3 days
Loved : The city structure.
Hated : Smelling pot.
Learned : That people in the Netherlands do not wear bike helmets and I am terrified of bike riding with cars.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 6 days
Loved : Meeting up with friends, seeing windmills, and bike riding.
Hated : Still smelling pot.
Learned : Coffee shops don’t actually sell coffee.

Tomorrow I have one more night left in Amsterdam! Then I go to Paris for a month to stay with @Vivacions. I apologize in advance to everyone following us both on Twitter. Our conversations are sometimes inappropriate. (though I still recommend following her

To anyone wanting to travel and think they can’t do it alone or don’t have the money, yes you can! For my entire trip, I spent about the same amount of money I would have spent paying for rent and food in Seattle. In the next couple of days I’ll be writing a post about how to travel cheaply. If I can do it, so can you!

Cheers!

People would rather read about your misery than happiness. Maybe that sounds harsh, but face it – it’s true.

For this reason, I usually blog about the bad things that have happened on my trip instead of posts about what went right.Think about it, how boring would it be if I wrote a post that went like this:

Today was lovely, I had a nice breakfast, I went to the beach, then I took a nap…..blah, blah, blah. I know I wouldn’t bother to read a post about that.

For the amount of bad things I have had happen on my trip, the amount of good has surely surpassed the negative. Yes, I have had breakdowns on the trip and yes, many things didn’t go as planned, but overall the whole trip has been worth it and I have learned a lot about myself.

What have I learned?

Things can always be worse – “Someone pulled a knife on me in Prague!” another traveler told me today. “My passport and visa were stolen!” and even, “I had 2,000 Euros in fraudulent charges to my credit card” are things I have heard from travelers. Even though I have had a couple rough days, I have not yet broken any bones, had anything major stolen, or been in any immediate physical danger. Listening to the stories of other travelers has made made me appreciate some of the minor mishaps I have had happen – they even make for good stories!

Nice people are everywhere – Yesterday, I spent my day hanging out with two cool girls from Ireland who invited me to come to the beach with them. Even though I am completely sun burned – I had a great time! Did they have to ask me to come with them? Not at all. In general, people want to help you and so many people have reached out to me after finding out I was traveling by myself. Since leaving my former travel partner, I have yet to be “alone”.

My Twitter friends are great – I like traveling with other people because when something goes wrong, you can vent to them, revealing some of the days stress. When traveling by myself, this is often bottled up over the course of a few days or even weeks. During this trip, when I have problems and rough days, I sometimes vent on Twitter. Probably not a professional thing to do, but whenever I have done this I have so many amazing friends who have cheered me up, ensured me that everything will be okay, and have told me to not give up, when I have wanted to quit and go home. Thank you all so much!

Foreign money is not play money – Something about colorful money, mentally diminishes the value for me. In the US, I am very good at budgeting and not spending unnecessary money. Something about having foreign currency makes me spend money faster. I am still trying to hammer into my brain that even though it may be a coin, it can have much more value than the coins in the US.

Be flexible – With anything in life, your plans can always change. There is no use harping on the fact that your trip did not go as planned. I have missed trains, had accommodation cancel, and have been stuck in cities I was trying to leave because of full trains. You just deal with it. When you can’t do anything about your situation, why be angry? – enjoy where you are.

I can always make more money – Even when I have had unnecessary expenses, I know I can always get a job when I go back to Seattle. There is no use in worrying when I can’t do anything about my financial situation until I’m back.

Wifi and drinking is expensive – If I could do over my trip, the only thing I would have done differently, was not stay so connected and to drink less cider. Both helped me drain my bank account.

You don’t need as much as you think – When I go back to Seattle, it will be odd to have a whole apartment full of stuff. Stuff – that’s all it is. I haven’t once thought “Oh, I wish I had ____ the entire trip” – and all I have is a carry on. Not living out of a suitcase will be weird.

Thank you to everyone that has helped me out via Twitter or Facebook, has read any of my blog posts, or has offered travel advice. It means a lot to me and I am thankful for the great friends I have. Even though traveling has been fun, I’m looking forward to coming home to Seattle in September. Tweetup anyone?

Yes, it really looks like that! Yesterday I went on a 7 hour hike of Cinque Terre, Italy. Not a regular hiker, I had never been on a hike this long. Not being in my fitness peak because of the constant traveling, I am really not sure how I managed to accomplish that. Right now I am exhausted. I’m sitting in my hostel all day and I am perfectly content with this.

Today, I have been gone exactly five months from Seattle. I am worn out. I have had so many things go wrong on this trip, yet I have yet to quit. I have debated going back to Seattle early or even going back to London for a month. I am craving familiarity. I want my friends. I am also dying to feel healthy again.

Familiarity – Each time I have arrived in a new place I have to reorient myself. Not only is this stressful, but it can be costly because of transportation. Traveling by myself has felt empowering in the sense that I feel after this I could do anything. Even though empowering, it has been far from easy. I have been forced to socialize even after a long and tiring day of traveling. Being a girl, alone in Europe, I do admit it has it’s downsides – mostly the creepy men coming up to me constantly. I’ll be wearing no makeup, haven’t showered in a few days, and be downright disgusting yet I’ll still be approached. This is not flattering to me – and it saddens me that so many women refrain from traveling for this reason.

Friends – Each place I go, I have to make new friends. 3 days later I leave them. Repeat. Though I will keep in touch with many, it has been tough to constantly be bouncing around. I have about 45 days until I am back in Seattle. I am missing my friends, I’m missing my Mom, and I’m missing people to talk entrepreneurship and tech with, as I have not encountered many people with my interests while in hostels.

Health - I have gained a bit of weight on this trip. I have lost some confidence in myself because of this and I feel terrible about my body. People say they don’t notice in pictures, but that doesn’t matter to me – I notice. In Seattle, I work out everyday. Here, once or twice a week. I feel crappy. I have been eating unhealthy and I’m dying for a normal schedule and available showers after sweating. The past week I have really made an attempt to eat healthy, but it has been hard as my travel budget is slowly running out.

This trip has definitely been a test of what I can handle:

Here it goes :

Arrived in London :

-Stayed for 4 months - The first day there, my laptop broke and my credit and debit cards refused to work. Even though checking into the banking before I left numerous times – Bank of America still didn’t update my information correctly.

- Switched living accommodations four times. The moment I felt comfortable – I would be ripped away to go somewhere else.

- Spent way more than planned. Cider really adds up. Somehow I managed to spent a six month budget in four months. Somehow I am still functioning, but the moment I go back to Seattle I need a job again.

Even with all of these mishaps. I LOVED London. The people there were fabulous and I had a great time.

While in London, I traveled parts of England, Ireland, and even made it to Barcelona, Spain.

Barcelona was a story of it’s own. While in Barcelona, I tried to Couchsurf while there. The guy I was staying ended up trying to make moves on me which basically put a damper on my trip. Barcelona is beautiful, but because of my experiences there, I can’t say I ever want to return. My original plan was to move to Spain for the summer to improve my Spanish, but after a bad experience, I decided to do some traveling instead.

Here is where it went from London.

Hellish bus ride from London to Paris. 12 hours no sleep. Ended up sleeping in a McDonald’s for 3 hours when I got off the bus.

Arrived in Paris :

- Got stuck for 5 additional nights.
- Lost my friend and found out we were incompatible travel partners.
- Fighting, stress, having to pay for a hotel because hostels were all booked.
-Creepy men that wouldn’t leave me alone.
-I had a mini break down as it seemed everything was falling apart.

The trip then got better as I met up some relatives of one of my Seattle friends, saw some of my friends who lived in Paris, and stayed in a less sketchy area.

Phew!

After spending three hours in the flooded Paris train station and paying 30 dollars for Internet to check my accommodations, I boarded a train to Milan. The ride was nice, but still long.

Arriving in Milan:

Getting off the train the first thing I noticed was the increase in attractive men roaming about. This made me feel a bit better until I was unable to find my hostel. Sweating, tired from a day of travel, and lost, I had to shell out for a taxi after being unable to navigate the Italian buses.

The hostel I stayed at in Milan was clean – thank God! Even though the hostel was clean, the lady who ran the place was crazy. I wish I would have had my video camera to document it. Even after getting very lost the first day, the trip got better with gelato and pizza. It got even better when I repeated my bad eating habits about five more times.

In Milan, I was covered with mosquito bites, which continue to appear day after day. The bug spray doesn’t even work! I’m not even making this up, but I’m in the process of being bitten as we speak as I see a few mosquitoes flying around. I had a nice time in Milan, but then it was off to Venice.

Arriving in Venice:

Arriving in Venice, I was happy to find that the hostel was so close to the train station. It was too good to be true – until I got inside. Not only did the hostel have lots of hidden fees that were not apparent on the website, The man inside was very rude and then moved me to another hostel about 5 minutes away. “Okay, fine, who cares?” I thought, until I got to the next place. The beds were disgusting and I got bit even more by bugs. I wouldn’t doubt I picked up some sort of disease from there – but so far I have been okay.

Next was a nice first two days exploring Venice, until the trip turned sour once again with the travel partner I was with. Her, being drunk off of one beer, deserted me at 2am to run off with some random Italian man that clearly wanted more than to just watch the fireworks. Even though she is an “adult” (19) I felt responsible for her (as she has never traveled before, was drunk, and very naive) and tried to convince her to come back with me for an entire hour. After my failed attempts and being threatened by the guy she was about to leave with – I decided to make my way back to the hostel.

As soon as I left her, I realized I had no map and had no idea where I was. It was late, I was tired, I was angry and I tried to ask about twenty people how to get to the train station – as I knew my way back from there. After about an hour of failed attempts, I was again in tears. I then met a group of lovely people who worked in Venice and refused to leave me until they saw I had gotten back to my hostel. I still don’t know how I would have gotten back without them, as there are no taxi’s in Venice. After a nice chat, and an hour walk back to where I was staying, I crashed the moment I got into bed.

Waking up the next day, my travel partner had the nerve to ask why I was mad. I told her I couldn’t travel with her anymore as this was far from the first problem we had. She then refused to give me the locker key, where my passport and train pass were being held, not allowing me to book my train out for the entire day (the people at the hostel were stupid and told me because I didn’t have the number to the key they couldn’t open it for me either!)

Shortly after this “adventure”, two girls from Australia came into the room and we bonded over chatting about the disgusting bathroom and dirty bedsheets. After hanging out with them, we decided to ride a gondola which definitely made everything better.

The next morning, leaving my new friends, I set out on my own to go to take a train to Florence.

Arriving in Florence:

Guess who got off at the wrong train station? Oh that’s right…me! After 20 minutes of unclear directions from locals, I ran into two other American girls who had done the same thing – as the tickets were extremely unclear. After arriving in the hostel, I was relieved as I was to stay in the same place for 5 nights. Unfortunately, I had to keep booking rooms day by day and was forced to wake up early, check my belongings, and come back to the hostel at 2:30 to stay another night (as I’m doing right now – killing time until I can re-check in.)

Even with the hostel hassle, I have had a much better time traveling by myself. I met many other lone travelers in the hostel and have had a great time since I have been here – other than some events that happened yesterday and a case of food poisoning.

Yesterday, I went to Cinque Terra, which was in the picture above. Beautiful. So worth it, except for a few of the events that happened over the course of the day :

Waking up at 6am, my new hostel friends and I got to the train station to board the next train to Cinque Terra. With our luck, the next train didn’t come until 10, forcing us to wait an additional 3 hours.

Sitting on the train – dozing off, and with a small hole in my bag, I was probably a prime target for pickpockets. Never having any trouble in the past, I probably should have been a little more cautious. Twenty minutes after boarding the train, a beggar lady with two others came around to ask for money. She apparently was not just asking for money, but scoping out the train for victims. Ten minutes later, she returned again. She then again returned to ask us for money but as she did, she sneakily placed her scarf over my bag and began to put her hand into my bag. As I saw her do this, I quickly pulled her hand away from a wallet with my first reaction to yell “WHAT THE FUCK?! Are you serious?! Get your hand out of my bag!!”. She obviously didn’t like this, and then slapped me a few times, waved her hands and muttered something that sounded like a curse, and then proceeded to spit on me. I have never been more insulted. MY BAG! I got spit on because I wouldn’t let her take MY BAG.

Finally, after much more confusion with the Italian trains, we finally made it and began our hike. 7 hours and 10 bottles of water later, we had hiked all of Cinque Terra – defiantly something I am proud to have accomplished. A few times I had wanted to quit, but somehow blocked out the pain and kept going.

After an overpriced and not quality dinner, we made our way back to the train station. After running from platform to platform, not understanding the signage, we finally boarded our first train to Pisa where we would have a connecting train to Florence.

Unfortunately, when we got to Pisa, all of the trains had been delayed. We later realized it was because someone had passed away on the train as paramedics pushed a dead body on a stretcher out of the station. The body and sobbing women walking along the stretcher almost brought me to tears and is an image I don’t think I will ever forget. Shaken up, we then found out our train would not be coming and there were no more trains for the remainder of the night. I think my only defense mechanism from snapping was laughter, as I then began to laugh at everything anyone said even though it was obviously not funny.

Feeling zombie like, we found a two hour bus back to Florence. After waiting an hour and a half outside a creepy train station we finally got on the bus. Unable to sleep, I waited patiently until we arrived. Walking back from the station, I was very glad I was in a group as there were prostitutes and strange people roaming Florence at 3am. The moment I got into bed, I crashed, only to have to wake up a few hours later to check out of my hostel,which I have to recheck into at 2:30! After all that, I am left sitting in the cafeteria for a few hours until I can check into my room. 2 more hours to go…..

What’s next?

Tomorrow I will go to Nice, France by train for two nights. After that I am still unsure. I think I may to the Netherlands and Belgium. I have about 2 weeks left to travel until I will will meet up with a friend in Paris and stay there until September.

*Phew*

Deep breath. I have made it this far, I refuse to go back early (even when I would like to) I feel that my limits have already been pushed. It can’t get much harder? Right?

I’m sweaty. It is a million degrees outside. Plans keep falling through. My hotel (if you can even call this a hotel) is like a sauna right now. I’m staying in the worst part of town possible. I can’t walk down the street without being approached by some creepy middle aged man. The wifi will barely connect. I have spent 10 times my allotted budget for the past few days. My travel buddy didn’t end up working out as planned. Nothing is going as planned. I have wanted to cry in frustration, punch people in anger, and just give up and go home early. (Okay the punching was an exaggeration) One of my friends just commented that I should make this a reality show – probably a good idea – misery always sells.

But this is the end of my complaining. Sorry if my tweets have all been so down and emotional the past few days. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I can’t stay mad or upset for longer than 5 minutes. Deep breaths, deep breaths. *phew* I think I’m officially okay. I think just about everything possible has gone wrong so nothing else can right?

Tentative plans :

Stay in Paris until Wed – then train to Italy for a week.

Then somewhere (Belgium/Amsterdam/Greece?) for another 2 weeks.

Then go stay with @Vivacions in Paris until September 6th.

London for 1 more night.

Then home to Seattle.

When I get home I would like to go to a Seattle tweetup, eat thai food, and get some decent coffee. Then go to the gym and work off all the cider I drank while in London. After this, I will be looking for a job in marketing or social Media. Know of anything?