After years of contorting my body into haphazard and precarious positions to take the perfect travel photo and sharing those journeys on my Facebook and with my laptop and paper journal, it’s high time I transposed those times onto my blog.  I used to write frequently on older blogs but had then switched to a more private mode.  Meanwhile, my reputation among family & friends & in the office is “the traveler.”  My buddy Paul at work recently said to me that my receiving the cobalt blue rolling suitcase was the perfect birthday present because “If I had to describe you in one word, it would be ‘traveler.’” 

It would be selfish of me to accredit this wanderlust to innate personality.  My parents came from an international mindset with friends from various countries.  Music from Portuguese fadista Amália to American clarinetist Benny Goodman, compositions of Nino Rota, Korean pop folk such as Patti Kim, Latin rhumbas in a collection too thick to name streamed through our house.  Roadtrips with the family meant cassette tapes stocked with Elvis, Buddy Holly, Nat King Cole, Burl Ives, and Doris Day.  I was regularly quizzed to recognize which Classical composer was playing.  My dad recently gave me my new favorite book, 20 Chickens for a Saddle, signed by the author and now my eyes are filled with a Botswanan childhood.  So my wanderlusting, or as I like to say, wanderbusting given my risk-taking attitude while traveling, was nurtured from early on.