The End of an Era (a Short Era)

It is a little off-topic, but because it kind of, sort of pertains to my travels (and I'm really really proud of it), I decided to include the completion of my very first scrapbook in this blog.  It took me five weeks and about two hundred dollars, but I have to say, it was worth it. 

I have started scrapbooks before but always failed to finish them.  I believe that this one is special because it chronicles a specific amount of time in my life--my ten weeks on Semester at Sea--and during this particular period of time I was blogging and photographing like mad.  I have detailed accounts of every day I spent in a foreign land this summer, which I subsequently printed, cut, and pasted into my 40-page long book of scraps. 

I also included photographs, which cost me a whopping forty-five dollars to get developed (I had to cut it down from 200 pictures, AKA $60, to 137), as well as random tickets, maps, receipts, stamps, postcards, and little colorful flowers I cut out by hand; it seemed too dull without them.  So this is the result: an over-stuffed, bright blue, forty-page scrapbook that was beyond worth the effort and that I know I will be more than happy I did when I can't remember exactly what I had for lunch on day 34, or what museum I visited in Spain, or what the island I went cliff-jumping off of in Croatia was called.  I am rather excited to have completed this task, and look forward to creating more in the future.  This time, however, I will venture out to a scrapbooking store and not settle for CVS pharmacy, where I had only one choice for just about everything.  My father is rather enthused to accompany me on my scrapbook-store outings.  The next one: my 4-day 21st birthday extravaganza, Vegas style.