Saturday, November 13, 2010

I'm sure everyone remembers their first trip to Disneyland.  It was the happiest place on earth at age 5 where you could spend the entire day with all of your cuddly best friends that you usually only shared your typical mornings with on the Disney Channel.  My favorite part of the whole experience was the colorful, character filled book that came with the sparkly pen used to get the autographs of Cinderella or Mickey Mouse.  The more autographs I got, the happier I was.

Now at 23 years of age, nothing has changed except for my character covered autograph book.  I think the big kid version is something we grownups call a passport.
When I find out I will be traveling to a new land, I am not excited (at first) about the history or what gorgeous architecture I might be able to see.  I am excited for my new stamp or visa that I get to put into my passport.  I think of what it might look like and what colors it could be.  I even try to imagine what picture will be on the stamp or if there will even be a picture at all.
Just to further help you imagine my love for my passport and the journey of filling up all it's spaces, I spent the two hour plane flight home from Krasnodar looking through my little book of travels, counting the number of spaces I had left to fill, how many places I had traveled to and in what amount of time.  I think I am officially qualified to be a passport nerd.