A disclaimer -- Gelato is an excellent substance in which to drown your sorrows -- Sometimes you run screaming from the person you're madly in love with -- The contents of my mother's carry-on look like evidence from a prison riot -- In which I am surprised to learn that getting lost doesn't bring about the apocalypse -- Life lessons from a three-hundred-year-old dead guy and his boring clock -- You take the grenade my mom brought to dinner; I'll book our flight: finding balance in relationships -- Marry someone who will help you deal with your shit -- Listen to your heart, even if it tells you to steal things -- Home is where your MRI is -- It's always easier to leave for a trip than to be left behind -- Bucket lists are just plain greedy -- Is there a Gaelic word for "I'm freaked out about our marriage"? -- Salvation looks a lot like Wisconsin -- Turns out, things aren't always what they seem -- Munich: land of sausages and epiphanies -- Where there's a Fiat, there's a way -- Just go

A travel blogger who has no sense of direction and motion sickness chronicles the five-year period she traveled the world, discovering love, numerous places to call home, and herself

"Some people are meant to travel the globe, to unwrap its secrets and share them with the world. And some people have no sense of direction, are terrified of pigeons, and get motion sickness from tying their shoes. These people are meant to stay home and eat nachos. Geraldine DeRuiter is the latter. But she won't let that stop her. Hilarious, irreverent, and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the years Geraldine spent traveling the world after getting laid off from a job she loved. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she now understands her Russian father better than ever before. She learned that what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called 'being Italian.' She learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love--how that person can help you make sense of things and make far-off places feel like home. She learned about unemployment and brain tumors, lost luggage and lost opportunities, and just getting lost in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned that sometimes you can find yourself exactly where you need to be--even if you aren't quite sure where you are."--Jacket