End of Summer Contest

It's time for a giveaway!

The winner will receive an Archie Grand notebook ($19 link) and a Baggu bag ($8 link). I love Archie Grand for all his clever notebooks and the Baggu bag is an eco friendly reusable bag, which is great for traveling.

archiegrand.com

The deadline for this contest is September 15th.

justjared.com

To enter, make sure you either follow or subscribe to my blog to qualify. Then simply post a reply to the question: if you can travel around the world with anybody for a year, who would it be?

Personally, I would love go with James Franco. He seems like he's always up for an adventure, and 95% of the time you see him, he always appears either really stoned or really happy. How can you go wrong with that?

The winner will be chosen at random. 

Good luck everyone!

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UPDATE: The contest has officially closed. Congratulations Rita! 

Berlin

Being in Berlin reminded me of my life in art school - slightly chaotic, random, filled with more art than you're able to see in a lifetime, and with so many hipsters, it makes you wonder which factory is producing so much spandex.

Being from Toronto where the subway map looks like this:

 And the subway map of Berlin looking like this:

I think I would still be in Berlin trying to figure out this map if I didn't have my wonderful German friend Martin pick me up from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

Sony Centre

With so much culture and history, sometimes walking down a different street makes me feel like I'm in a different country altogether. I mean, a stroll down one street feels very German (fun), then another feels very communist (not so fun), and some places like the Sony Centre looks so modern it's hard to believe you're still in Europe.

I remember reading somewhere that Berlin was ever-changing. I mean most cities are, but take this as an example: when I went to visit Martin, he just got back from Australia (where we met) two weeks ago. Aside from his year abroad, he's lived in Berlin his whole life....and yet, as he was showing me around his hometown, he was surprised at all the new buildings that didn't exist a year ago, and the old ones that disappeared.

Kunsthaus Tacheles

During the first day in Berlin, we took one of those double-decker streetcars and Martin, who probably takes the prize as being the world's fastest tour guide, takes me to all the major touristy attractions such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the TV Tower, Holocaust Memorial, and the Berlin Wall in about three hours. I actually really loved the idea as we were able to spend the rest of our time together (about three days) doing  "local" stuff (which was what I wanted) without me feeling guilty that I went all the way to Berlin without taking a photo of the famous Wall (which, of course I took tons of pics).

One of the coolest places Martin took me to was this art house called Tacheles. It's a multi-story building filled with hippies and stoners who work and sell their art in their studios. Apparently there's plans to take the building down, which I hope doesn't happen despite the fact that the place reeks of beer, weed and piss (then again, it doesn't smell any worse than some of the warehouse parties I've been to in art school).

Something else I liked where the large window stickers on the subways of the Brandenburg Gate. Martin said that because there's so much graffiti in Berlin, the stickers prevent graffiti on the windows, and any graffiti on the stickers can easily be peeled off and replaced. Genius!

I asked Martin where I can find the upside down Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and he told me that it's an attraction that's only viewable after taking lots of shots of vodka... which he happened to have quite a few bottles of at home. Aren't I lucky? All I can say is, if you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend it!

One of the things I did regret was not planning my trip in a way that my visit to Berlin fell on the weekend. While me and Martin did have fun going out at night, I would've loved to be there for the infamous Berlin nightlife at its best. Having that said, after going to Berlin, it's definitely at the top of the list of cities I'd like to live in when I move to Germany next year.

As David Bowie once said about Berlin, it's "the greatest cultural extravaganza that one could imagine." Love it or hate it, Bowie says it best.

Wanderlust on a bag

While I do have my fair share of buying tacky souvenirs, something I see everywhere and really hate are those black tote bags with a city name printed all over in white (see left). I mean, while it's nice to show off your favourite city on a bag and declare your love for said city to the world, at the same time, those bags are just plain ugly (even if they weren't so ugly, the thought of having to choose just one city to declare as my favourite seems like an impossible task).

On the topic of tote bags, with the summer sadly coming to an end, and university just around the corner, some of you may be shopping for the perfect bag to lug your textbooks around on campus this year.


With that said, here's a few of my favourite tote bags to satisfy the wanderlust in all of us:

source: longchamp.com
Longchamp, limited edition Eiffel Tower tote, $155

source: fuchsiaboy.blogspot.com
Marc by Marc Jacobs, london tote, $20

source: fattystore.com
Marc by Marc Jacobs, USA map shopper, $49

Book review: Wanderlust: A Love Affair With Five Continents

Hey guys, sorry I haven't updated in so long! I've been really busy lately with work and have been spending all of my free time outside (summer in Canada is so short, it should be a rule that any day over 20 degrees should be spent on a beach or by the lake).

Anyway, I've just recently finished reading a travel memoir called Wanderlust: A Love Affair With Five Continents by Elizabeth Eaves. I first saw it at a bookstore, when the title first caught my eye. The author is Canadian, and the memoir is about her romances and adventures abroad. I immediately purchased it, because well, her life sounds quite  like mine...

The memoir begins with Eaves talking about her first boyfriend who introduced her to the world of travel, as well as her university exchange to Cairo. The book spans over about a decade of Eaves's life, from her university days to her early thirties. I loved and was intrigued with the book from that point as she spoke of her time in countries I've never even thought of visiting, such as Afghanistan. She challenges herself to take on new adventures, and despite the risks, does not question about venturing off to the Middle East and the jungles of Papua New Guinea. The worse fear, which resonates in the hearts of anyone affected by wanderlust, is of course, the thought of returning home.

One of my favourite parts in the memoir are the chapters she writes about her time in Australia. Focusing primarily on Airlie Beach, where she spent most of her time, her descriptions of the beach town and the surfer boys catapulted me back to my own memories of my time in Australia last year. At one point, I had to put the book down entirely as I was too saddened by nostalgia.

Her memoir concentrated a lot on her relationships on the road, which intrigued me at first, but simultaneously depressed me near the end of the book. I find Eaves brave how she can write about her relationships so openly, as while I'm usually found scribbling feverishly in my journal, most of my relationships I find too personal to really share with anyone other than some close friends.

The fact that Eaves indulges in so many meaningless, nameless hook-ups while abroad, describing sex as simply "fucking," felt like I was reading about a college frat boy rather than a girl my age. Her meaningful relationships always end up with Eaves running away to another country, resulting in broken hearts. I loved reading about Eaves's love affairs with foreign men while she was in her early twenties, but when she's thirty and running away from men who she claims she loves, and who offer her marriage proposals, running away seems childish.

I loved this memoir as it is written by a female travel writer who shares much of the same beliefs I have about life and traveling. While I love and admire her boldness, her fear of relationships also worries me about the future of my wanderlust inflicted life. I highly recommend this memoir for a light summer read, however, the end of the book makes me question life and love in a way that I'd rather save for a cold day in front of a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate.

3.5/5