Collywobbles

An irresistible compulsion to travel and a nervous affliction: put these together and you get the collywobbles, that jittery feeling one gets from anxiety. Faye Brenner pursued a wanderlust ever since her high school trip to Europe, anxiety be damned...sort of. In Collywobbles, she takes us on amusing journeys from climbing up to the gargoyles atop Notre Dame to crawling through the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam, all the while wrought with multiple anxieties - from the fear of heights to the fear of getting lost. As she seeks ways to overcome her angst, Faye continues to pursue worldly pleasures in the arts, food, phalluses, and, oddly enough, toilets. Collywobbles is part memoir and part travelogue, set amid Faye's often humorous experiences while globetrotting through life, first as an apprehensive student, evolving into an insightful educator, disastrous lover, emerging tour guide, and finally, a happy pensioner. Along the way, we meet her several travel partners who, sometimes, simply add to her angst. Yet, even if there were a cure for her travel addiction, Faye would not consider it.