About Me

I am a twenty-eight year old, who is a child at heart. A photographer, wordsmith and traveller, for whom the world is a playground. It doesn’t matter that I am hard-of-hearing, because it has never stopped me before from learning, speaking, and doing. And it won’t stop me now.

Having been raised between the United States and Poland, and having lived in Spain for some time, I seamlessly switch between American and British English. At least the spelling part, and can’t decide which one to stick with.

It doesn’t help that I work for a United Kingdom-based bank in the United States (oh, the conundrum!), as an Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing expert. This job entails lots of research, writing, and editing. And of course, my knowledge of three languages, and international relations is a plus.

So what’s up with “The Red Backpack”?

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who opened up a box for Christmas. Inside lay a red backpack from The Gap, and immediately she fell in love. She took it to her fifth grade class, and during the summers, the backpack became her go-to for trips all around. She began to place pins, as a way of collecting the places that she has been, into the backpack as a reminder of all the places that she has gone, and has yet to go.

While she outgrew the backpack (it’s a bit too small for a laptop), it has always been the one thing that she treasured the most, and continued to stick pins as a reminder of all the places she travels.

Today, that red backpack hangs on the door of my closet, and is a reminder of all the good in this world, and the things that I have seen. I loved the backpack so much, that I searched for another one for a very long time. Ultimately, I settled on buying a Fjällräven backpack in red, and I use it to carry everything during my travels and to work.

The red backpack is symbolic: red for passion, and backpack because it holds everything. So this blog is about my passion for life, and for all the things that I fancy.

Welcome to my life.