How to Travel in Style (When You're a Mess)

I become that which I most dread when I travel: a Facebook user. I insist on uploading even the most mundane pictures, geo-tagging every step of the way as if the validity of my social sharing directly corresponds to my distance from home. Exhibit A: the crappy photo below, for which I didn't even clean off my mirror. You're welcome!

This is everything I packed for the trip. (AND: I made my bed! Quilt from Coming Soon, African throw from Home of the Brave, pillows from Hammer & Spear.) I bought "luggage" for this trip because I wanted to be cute, duh, although I couldn't necessarily hold so much? The backpack is from Joshu & Vela and the tote is Billykirk. Since my bandwidth for fashunz was so limited, I only packed one other pair of jeans. Then I boarded my flight, ordered red wine, and promptly spilled it all over my ass.*

*UPDATE: Many people (two people) have now asked me how I managed to get the wine directly onto my ass cheek, albeit not in so many words. You see, the wine cup slid off of the tray table and fell to the side of my ass and I sat in it. Science!

As you can see, it looks like some super angry ass bruise. Needless to say, my white jeans were out of commission for the duration of the trip, and yes, I had to walk around in my stained pants through two more airports. Cool. (Though, FYI, a hot and heavy bathroom interlude with some club soda helped to mitigate the worst effects of the wine; an intense therapy session with Simply Spotless once I got back home—yes, a full week later—pretty much completely removed the stain. Bless!)

Also, here is my backpack in Rome's Fiumicino airport. I ate cookies for lunch that day because I wasn't sure I could use my Visa card abroad. But the backpack looks cute, roight? Once I finally landed in Bologna I checked into my AirBNB, which was insanely gorgeous and I died.

No joke, right? So that was my travel day. I was totally exhausted by the end of it. I managed to navigate to a restaurant that came recommended in some 36 Hours in Bologna guide, stuffed my face with Bolognese and tiramisu, then crashed. I haven't really edited my film photos from the trip yet, but I'm going to start that soon, so keep your eyes peeled!