Compared to Rome, Florence is asleep. The first thing I noticed when leaving the train and walking to the hotel: bike lanes everywhere. If you tried to ride a bike in Rome, you’d be dead within the hour. There are also “parklets,” parking-space sized parks, for sitting outside of cafes and restaurants. As a proud, longtime supporter of Seattle’s plan for increasing streateries and parklets, I am wondering if we maybe stole the idea from Florence.

We had to hit the ground running in Florence with two museum visits because they would be closed the next day. The first, Gallery di Academia, has Christian art from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Pretty much the only thing everyone cares about is front and center in the museum: Michelangelo’s David.

The lighting changed perfectly as we approached, showing David in all his shining splendor.

I didn’t realize how giant David is, so...

I awoke today to a bag of fresh croissants hanging on my door, and I would have it no other way. Marco is not aware that my mother cannot have gluten, so he is bringing me more croissants than is humanly possible for one person to eat. It’s the best.

I think it took me until today to realize how amazing Rome is, and I don’t exactly know why. I think I was preoccupied with the impending fear of being beaten, mugged, and left for dead, but I’m over that now. Rome is just more interesting than any place I’ve ever been. It has the most interesting streets I’ve ever seen that are a bit haphazard and run every which way – but in a good way – making it infinitely explorable. Everywhere you turn there’s a new side-street to explore with the most beautiful hidden little church or piazza you’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve seen any residential-only streets, either. Our block alone has two...

Today we overslept and missed our small group Vatican walking tour. That’s really all I’m going to say about that. This trip has so far been filled with several mishaps that I’ve neglected to outline: being scammed at a restaurant, not realizing that the subway closes at 10 pm, not having enough marmalade croissants. I objectively like Rome for the things it has to offer: art, Vespas, incredible architecture, pasta, and a wealth of history. It’s probably the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. But I haven’t necessarily loved my subjective experience of Rome. The streets are insane, everything is incredibly overcrowded, and you don’t really know who you can trust.

Despite the oversleeping, we were able to score a spot on the 9 am Vatican walking tour. By this time, the Vatican was already packed beyond packed with the first batch of it’s 27,000 visitors today. If it were not for Linda...

Today I landed in Rome – the eternal city, Roma, the city of the seven hills, the pick-pocketing capital of the world. I tend to be a little preoccupied with the latter. I have spent many a sleepless night pouring over details of the dangers of petty theft in Rome, and I am completely prepared to take all necessary precautions. Money belt? Wearing it. Nicely dressed men, women with babies, adorable children? Avoiding them at all costs. Large groups of Americans? I’m not a fool.

I am completely prepared and on edge, ready to keep my guard up and not become distracted by the magnitude of the Coliseum, or the beauty of the Tivoli fountain lit up at night (nice try, Rome). I’m no sucker. I even bought some stylish ankle boots to blend in with the locals who hopefully also carry around maps and wear cameras around their necks.

Stepping out of the train with my giant backpack, I anticipated...

With only one day left in Dublin, we decided to do what the stereotypical American tourist would do: tour of the Guinness factory and a pub-crawl. While these are both activities that I would recommend to people visiting Dublin, I would not necessarily recommend doing them back-to-back on the same day.

The Guinness factory is the Disneyland of beer. During my limited time in Ireland, I have discovered that they have a flair for extremely elaborate, borderline cheesy museum exhibits, and the Guinness Experience did not disappoint. The entire thing is built to be shaped like the world’s largest glass pint. We smelled the four “elements” of Guinness emanating steaming glass orbs, learned how to expertly taste Guinness in a Victorian style portrait lined room, and ultimately scored a couple free pints at the panoramic bar at the very top.

My mother is unable to have gluten, so I may...

I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think that I could probably live in Dublin forever and learn to play the fiddle and work at a bookstore and grow old and have my ashes scattered in the River Liffey. Yes, I know, I’ve only been here for one day, and that I have the character flaw of immediately wanting to move to any city that I’ve most recently been to. But I think it might be real this time. Dublin has a bookstore on nearly every corner and a bus that takes you directly to IKEA, so it’s basically my ideal place. That’s all it takes.

Unfortunately, my mother is highly allergic to all of Dublin, and the “Clarityn” we scored at a Dublin pharmacy doesn’t seem to be helping. But she has forged onwards in her allergenic fog through walking tours, visits to pubs, and awkward hostel interactions.

This is the only time we are staying in a hostel on this trip, and from my very limited...

The road trip through Ireland continues. Since most of our time here has been spent in a car, I haven’t been able to document every moment on my camera. Just know that so far Ireland has consisted of a lot of toasties, Guinness, live music, and sceneries that look like this:

Yes, it’s true, I am living the life. But not as much as my mom is. She’s basically Irish royalty, just because she happens to have red hair. People ask if she’s a local, smile at her on the street, tip their hats to her, hit on her at pubs, wait on her every beck and call, carry her on their shoulders through the streets. In America, I am used to being considered to be a redhead, or a halfsie at the very least. But here, I don’t even fall on the ginger spectrum. I’m a negative. My mom is paraded around like the second coming of St. Patrick, and I don’t even get as much as a second glance.

Besides that, Ireland...

I first became interested in Ireland during my misguided youth, an unfortunately timed combination of reading Gone With the Wind and watching P.S. I Love You. When I went to the country for the first time, it basically equated or surpassed the high expectations that the media had built up in my 12-year-old mind. Now that I’m older and wiser, however, I appreciate Ireland for way more sophisticated reasons, like James Joyce and soda bread and wool cardigans and that layer of foam that comes on top of Guinness.

So Ireland basically had to be a part of this trip or I sensed that I would probably regret it forever. When planning, there are only two travel resources that I trust with my life. The first is Anthony Bourdain who can do no wrong and always points me towards the best food. And the second is Frommers’ which are by far the best-written travel guides. This way, if anything goes...

On our last day in Iceland, we left the city to head to the southern coast on an organized tour to explore volcanoes, glaciers, and black sand beaches, the “real Iceland” as the guidebooks would argue. I have a love/hate relationship with organized tours. On one hand, they’re nice because you don’t have to think about what to do for the day and can just sit back and relax. But on the other hand, they typically require interacting with and being around fellow tourists, which is the absolute worst. This particular tour was in both English and German and was led by MaryJane or MaryAnne or something like that. It seemed like every time I turned around MaryJane/Anne was telling us not to do something enjoyable:
“You can’t eat sandwiches in the bus.”
“Don’t touch the glacier!”
“Stay far away from the ocean.”
“Here’s the most beautiful town you’ve ever seen in your life – now leave in 20...

Yesterday during my jet-lag coma, I was feeling a bit skeptical about Reykjavik and it’s eternal fog, cold weather, and Lana Del Rey cover bands. However, today, after 12 hours of sleep, a large Gull beer, and the official I Heart Reykjavik walking tour, I can say that I, too, now heart Reykjavik. Here is a brief outline about why Iceland is possibly the greatest place ever:

1. You can paint your house (or anything else) whatever color you want.

In the country where I live, you can get in trouble with your homeowners’ association for having the wrong color of curtains. In Iceland, you can paint your house whatever color you damn well please. This creates a charming patchwork of multi colored houses, making every street look like this:

The way that Iceland allows for residents to be involved in the city’s built environment and physical space is just too cool. Iceland has the best...