Lucy as seen in the wild at the Vero Beach Book Center It's Lucy's launch day, and in her honor, the fantastic folks at Rock Star Book Tours are hosting a book blast and a giveaway! To enter, visit one of the participating blogs! The book blast post is a little something I wrote about the first time I backpacked across Europe, and how the experience taught me a few rules of the road. Me at 22, in Versailles Like Lucy Sommersworth, the heroine of Love, Lucy , my parents gave me the gift of a lifetime: a backpacking trip to Europe. I was a bit older than Lucy—22, and just out of college—but when I arrived in Milan, Italy with a Eurail pass, a copy of Let’s Go: Europe , and a seventy-pound backpack I could barely lift, I was a wee bit terrified. Like Lucy, I spoke only a little bit of Italian, just barely enough to get by, and I wasn’t particularly good at reading maps or train schedules. Street map of Milan, courtesy of http://www.aboutmilan.c