My goodness, how is it already the end of August?!

I have a series of trips coming up that I have been eagerly anticipating for what seems like forever. Back during my junior year of college, I was all signed up to go to Florence to study abroad for a semester, but I didn't end up going due to family and work situations back here in New York. While I don't regret staying at home during that particular time in my life, I do wish I had gone abroad at some point during my collegiate years.

Italy has been calling my name ever since, and I'm happy to say I am finally set to go!

New Orleans, Switzerland, and Italy are on the itinerary for the next month, and I could not be more excited to see more of Europe. I haven't taken a real vacation since I went to Paris and London during the 2012 holidays (I did have 6 weeks off work for my hip surgery last year, but 6 weeks of being useless on the couch in pain and physical therapy wasn't exactly relaxing or rejuvenating, haha!). While this Eurotrip was originally planned as a vacation, it evolved include some exciting work opportunities as well!

I'll be doing new roundups of all the cities I am visiting, like I did for Montréal, so that I can share it all with you. I'm particularly excited to be able to indulge in this passion of mine for photography to my little heart's desire during these travels.

As I wrote about in this post here, photography has been a passion of mine that really blossomed in the last 3-4 years.

It all started when I got my first DSLR, a Canon Rebel T2i, for my birthday in 2011 prior to my first trip to Europe when my family went to Spain. I was mostly shooting in automatic, but during the trip started to teach myself about photography basics like ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Soon enough, I was hooked. The rising popularity of Instagram the following year really increased the severity of my love for this form of art.

There's something about being able to capture a city, its people, a landmark, or a moment, in the exact, unique way I see it. Of course, I love capturing the staple landmarks when traveling, but being able to freeze a particular moment in time is what can hold dear memories. For instance, I took this picture below at the famous Parisian café, Carette, after my mom, sister, and I had just seen the Eiffel Tower and we needed a little afternoon coffee pick me up. We were sitting there laughing ourselves silly at funny moments that happened earlier, and we were taking goofy pictures the whole way. I took a picture of this little coffee, remembering how warm and delicious it was, and how full my heart felt in that moment to be sharing a special moment with my family.

All of these photos in this post are from my baby giraffe days of photography, but I wanted to share them with you. I love looking back at these photos and seeing how I've improved, but there are also times where I surprise myself with a fantastic shot I don't remember taking, but that I love so much now- beginner's luck!

Stay tuned for more new travel photos, but in the meantime, here are some more favorite beginner shots of mine below: