Ooh la la!

Since I've been in the black hole that is my experience with unemployment, I don't feel like I've been an exceptionally interesting person. Nothing much going on except application after application, which is far beyond boring. So I've decided to take on a project: learning French.

This finally arrived for me in the mail today

I've always loved the subleties and complexities of languages - some of you may remember that I minored in Spanish at Lipscomb, and I recently started reading The Story of English, which chronicles the history of our own language. But now I'm going to attempt to wrap my head around the sexy beast that is French.

My goal is to spend at least 20 minutes a day in some effort to learn French, whether it's working through this book, listening to podcasts or whatever other means I can find. Any suggestions for picking up another language are more than welcome. I'm excited about this new venture and hope you will hold me accountable with this!

Making headlines

Ok, so maybe not headlines, but how fun is it to show up in other people's blogs? A couple of weeks ago I made an afternoon trip to Murfreesboro to meet up with Jenna Brie, who was giving fellow photographer Tracy Anderson some pointers and practice with photography techniques and such. I had a great time playing model, as always, but it was COLD!

Make sure to check out Jenna Brie's blog and Tracy Anderson's blog for more about the day and some pics! (My favorite is with the old Case tractor.)

Unemployment blues

Here I am, scavenging free internet at Panera Bread after spending half of the morning doing the same thing at the local library. Job hunting. Do you have any idea how frustrating, stressful and ENDLESS job applications are? After months of doing this, it's fair to say I'm tired of it.

Gainful employment, find me soon. I miss you and your benefits.

Firestone 500

The holiday season has come and gone, and now that the newness has worn off on most people's Christmas gifts, I'll make some time to brag on mine a bit.

After exchanging gifts with Luke, we went to the garage to check out the progress he had made on the motorcycle when .... SURPRISE!! My real present was waiting for me and I could absolutely not believe it.

1960s Firestone 500

I found this gem in one of the old barns on my parents' farm some time in early November. And let me tell you, it looked rough when I discovered it. At that time, it was just a silly idea to get it fixed up and back in working order someday. Luke took that idea to a whole new level.

After stealing my mom's number out of my cell phone, he made a sneaky trip to Paris to pick up the big project (and meet my family for the first time). He had no idea what he was getting into.

Love the stars, but some major rust to work against

So Luke spent some major time and took everything apart, did some major rust removal, driving all over Nashville to hunt down new wheels and did other fix-it-up stuff that is over my head.

Needless to say, I was completely blown away by the final result. I can't think of anything that would have been more surprising or perfect. I still can't believe it. Best Christmas present ever. I'm pretty lucky to have such a sweet guy, eh?


In other events, Tina and Jenna Brie came to Nashville for the weekend so we had a great night on the town. There's always a fun to be had with these girls around.

Me, Tiner, Jenna Brie and Luke

Happy birthday to me!

On November 13, I turned 25! My mom warned me that she and my sister both cried all day when they turned 25 because they felt like they were so old. Thanks to a sweet/sappy email from my mom, I started out a little teary, too. :)


Jenna Brie came up from Shelbyville to spend the night with me, so we hung out in Nashville all day and got fancied up for a birthday date Friday night. After drinks at Patterson House, we had a nice long dinner at Flyte World Dining & Wine. It was a happy and laid back 25th birthday!

Fantastic drinks at Patterson House

My apologies

So I need to apologize for my lack of blogging. In the last few countries (Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland), internet has been expensive or difficult to find. Also, it's hard to find the time - there's just to much to see while I'm here! I think I'm far enough behind at this point that I'm going to have to catch up on the last 5 weeks or so when I get back.

As a consolation prize, I'll give you the quick rundown of the trip to here, and some highlights pictures. Today marks 7 weeks into my trip and in that time I've stayed in 19 cities and been to 10 countries. I've taken countless trains, buses and boats and become a champ at navigating public transportation buses, trams and subways. Made friends everywhere and from all over the world.

Beautiful Cinque Terre, Italy

The view from San Gimignano, Italy - the definition of Tuscany

"Of course I'm crossing the street with my accordian. Where's yours?"

I've visited lots of churches and cathedrals. Liked this shot.

Can't get enough of relaxation time in a good park, either. Sometimes it's nice to just sit down.

This market in Munich was incredible. I want to take it home with me.

Oktoberfest - got to see my first familiar face in 6 weeks! Check out the size of that beer. Prost!

So I hope you enjoy this little teaser. I'll be back in Tennessee on October 6 and will catch up on everything that I've missed then!

French and Italian Riviera

I doubt anyone still checks my blog since I have been so neglectful of it, but just in case anyone out there cares, I'll share a little more about my trip. We'll pick back up where I left off: leaving Madrid.

So in my initial travel plan (if you can call it that) I was going to grab up a super cheap last-minute flight from Madrid to Rome, then see do the cities in Rome as I moved northward. Well I was not so lucky with the cheap flights. Then I considered taking a ferry, but I'm not entirely sure how that works with the Eurail pass...I think you may just walk up to the dock and hope for the best. I didn't want to mess with that. So I decided I would just take trains all the way along the French Riveria so that my first stop in Italy would be Cinque Terre.

This turned out to be a time-consuming trip, so the first day I just rode trains as far east as I could go until I got to Montpellier, France, where no more trains were heading that direction for the night. Montpellier was a small quiet college town. I got directions to the hostel and ended up following some other young folks who looked like they might be heading the same way. They informed me that the hostel was full so I followed them to a local hotel. Even though I still had to go across the hall for the bathroom, I was pretty excited to have a room to myself for the night.


The train rides were beautiful on this part of the trip - routes followed the edge of the Mediterranean coast through the famous French Riviera cities. It was just too beautiful to resist, so I stopped over for a night in Nice, France. I spent the day relaxing on the pebble beach (which is way better than sand, in my opinion) and making difficult decisions like which gelato to choose from the 200 flavor selection.


Eventually, I made it to Cinque Terre, Italy. Cinque Terre is a string of 5 little villages nestled in the rugged coastline in northwest Italy (just north of Pisa). Towns are connected by hiking trails and trains, but there are no cars to speak of. I spent a full day hiking to each of the towns and set aside the next day as a recovery day, in which I was determined to do nothing but sit at the beach. The best meal I had in all of Italy was in the hostel in Manarola - gnocchi with pesto sauce. Incredible.

Looking down on the town on Vernazza

I found this incredible little path through the vineyards in Manarola, the town I called home.