Life Unraveled

Listening to your instincts while traveling does not just mean paying strict attention to your own gut feelings or hunches. It also means paying heed to every conversation you have along the way, giving credence to any advice that infiltrates your world, and knowing how to decipher what will work best for you versus what is simply another's (sometimes strong) personal opinion. My stop in Prague serves as Exhibit A of what can happen when you stay flexible and let your own internal strainer do the sifting. Once my filtering process was complete, what remained turn out to be a thoroughly enjoyable three days in the Czech Republic. Now, I must be honest here. The idea of going to Prague never even crossed my mind during the initial planning stages of this trip. But over time, everyone kept urging me to czech it out. I heard it all, from how cheap Prague is compared to the rest of Europe, to how incredibly beautiful and historic it is, and back again to how inexpensive it was to ...

Amsterdam is a gentle gem of a city. This is my observation while walking in the dark, chilly drizzle during that first evening in the Netherlands. Never mind the rain; night time is the right time to get my first taste of Amsterdam, the soft city lights reflecting off canals pinwheeling in every direction, lining nearly every street. There is a hush over the preceedings, the only nocturnal noises coming from the occasional ting-ting-ting from the bell of a passing bicycle. It's cold outside, but there is an underlying warmth here that is hard to ignore. Everything is on a very human scale, and even a late-night stroll around the city makes it clear right off the bat why so many have fallen in love with this Dutch wonderland. I immediately include myself among them. The buildings, the canals, the cobblestone paths, the deafening silence when outside the city center. It is just so darn cute here, I decide. In the pitch blackness of that first evening, without having yet exp...

Two weeks have passed already. Amazing. Where has the time gone? Well, about a week or so went to England. Climbing on and off the Underground subway in London, minding the gap between the platform and the train while shuttling my way around the city, I congratulate myself early and often on being able to find my way rather easily through this expansive metropolis. Of course, the Underground, or "the tube" as they call it here is fairly simple to use, but I'm on my own in a strange city, and so getting from point A to point B without getting lost becomes major victory #1 for me. And what is London like? It is an old, gray, classy city which reminds me a bit of New York, only cloaked in a thin veil of British regality that seems to tone the pace down just enough to make it manageable for someone like myself to divide and conquer its vastness within a few short days. The Underground makes it all possible, and I quickly figure out which stops to get off at to satisfy...