Joyful Traveling

I don't think 13 year old Rachel would believe that this day has come: I went to Vidcon. For all those of you who are confused, Vidcon is a video convention that has been held in Anaheim, California since 2010. This event was created by two brothers: John and Hank Green, who have a joint YouTube channel called vlogbrothers. Vidcon mainly encompasses YouTube, though other social media platforms are usually very present as well. This year, Vidcon officially moved outside of the United States and into Europe and Australia for the first time. And so since I am already in Europe, I decided to attend Vidcon EU in Amsterdam with my roommate Leah. We're both massive YouTube fans, and we couldn't pass up this one in lifetime opportunity. So after ordering our Vidcon tickets, booking our flights, reserving an Airbnb, and ranking our favourite Youtubers for the meet and greet lottery, we were ready to go! It didn't feel real until right before we left. I've had midt...

So a couple weeks ago I had a ton of fun as my mom visited me in Italy during my spring break! It was so lovely to see her after being here for almost 2 months now (also how has 2 months passed already? Crazy!). I decided to go to Ikea before picking Mom up from the airport because they're pretty close to each other. But it turns out that the space between the airport and Ikea is completely not for pedestrians, and so I was darting across roads with a giant heavy Ikea bag.  I did make it safely to the airport but then I realized that I really didn't plan how to get back into the city from the airport. Frantically I googled every single way to get into the center of Florence, and thankfully I had everything figured out by the time Mom arrived.  After resting very well that night in our hotel right next to Santa Maria Novella, Mom and I decided on Sunday that we wanted to go to Lucca! Well, I decided I wanted to go to Lucca again because I loved it so much t...