Adventure Awaits: A Roll of Film

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can

see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the

people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started

is not the same as never leaving”

~Terry Pratchett

Here is a collection of some of my favorite photos from this adventure. I was going through them the other day and wanted to share. I would try to explain what a truly amazing experience I have had, but I think this series of pictures will do a better job. I've included a lot of my roommate's photos. As you'll see, Janelle really has an eye for photography. I've been fortunate enough to have gone on a few trips with her and she always seems to capture the moments through her amazing pictures, some of which may end up in magazines or billboards...really. Enjoy, as I have done!

"Our apartments are our nests. Think of squirrels. They find a nice hole in the tree, fill it with provisions, and spend the winter there. We do the same"

Beppe Severgnini, An Italian in Italy

The door that opened new friendships and led to many lasting memories of importance of sharing experiences together

We always know that if Giacomo, our neighbor cat, is out on the roof it will be a nice day. After not seeing him all winter he was like the groundhog, as Maggie says, coming out in Spring to announce the shift in the weather. What his real name is, we will never know.

Cappuccino from the market, the best in town

Christmas was a magical time in Florence

"Buona sera e buona bevuta"

A memorable day biking around the little town of Lucca

Live in the sunshine. Swim the sea. Drink the wild air. ~Emerson

The peaceful little fishing village in Malta

Saturnia hot springs someplace after a drive through Tuscany

"What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again" ~Anaïs Nin

~Paris, France ~ Venice ~ Verona~

Krakow, Poland ~ Budapest, Hungary ~ Zagreb, Croatia ~ Ljubljana, Slovenia

“The polar Eskimos of Northwest Greenland call the polar bear pisugtoag, the great wanderer…the bear is a great wanderer not solely because it travels far, but because it travels with curiosity and tirelessly” ~Arctic Dreams

"No good train ever goes far enough, just as no bad train ever reaches its destination soon enough" ~Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonian Express

“In. Transit. If two sweeter words exist in the English language I have yet to hear them. Suspended between coming and going, neither here not there, my mind slows, and, amid the duty-free shops and PA announcements, I achieve something approaching calm” Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss

Our visit inside a snow globe ~ Lake Bled, Ljubljana

~ Amsterdam ~

"Earth laughs in flowers" ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

~Janelle's photo

“By going and coming, a bird weaves its nest.”

–Ashanti proverb

"I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind" ~Emily Bronte

"Trust and start walking. We are not alone in the dark, our path will unfold as we move. R.I. Stevenson once said: 'I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.' If you can't move in the physical world, move in your imagination, but move."

~Paulo Coelho

~Portugal ~ Spain ~ Morocco~

~Janelle's photo

"I have worn the dust of many foreign streets, but to brush it off would surely be a crime. I have the memories of many foreign adventures, but to forget them, would surely be a sin. So, breath in the dust, and keep the memories in" ~Rowland Waring-Flood

"'Birds seem to understand something we have never understood about the freedom of movement...birds know no borders.' They soar, they fly, they glide -- even our language for birds evokes travel of the most impassioned and graceful kind. For one with even a touch of wanderlust, birds in the wild embody the dream of pure, unadulterated freedom. And, sometimes subtlety, sometimes with a flourish, birds impart the nature of place -- its variety, its colors, its wildness, even its destruction. Whether it roots us in our own backyard or moves us across continents, birding also calls us to stillness, demands our keen attention to the details that flicker around us, so that we not miss a thing" The Gift of Birds

~Janelle's photo

"I would not have done anything differently. All of the moments in my life, everyone I have met, every trip I have taken, every success I have enjoyed, every blunder I have made, every loss I have endured has been just right. I’m not saying they were all good or that they happened for a reason—I don’t buy that brand of pop fatalism—but they have been right”

~Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss

"I know in my own case that a trip has really been successful if I come back sounding strange even to myself; if, in some sense, I never come back at all, but remain up at night unsettles by what I've seen. I bring back receipts, postcards, the jottings I've made, but none of the really tells the story of what I've encountered; that remains somewhere between what I can't sat and what I can't know" ~Pico Iyer Sun After Dark