If

If you had one day to travel wherever you wanted to go, where would you go?  More to the point, if you   had one day to travel to wherever you wanted in Tuscany, where would you go?  Florence is a possibility, as are Siena and Lucca and Pisa.  You and a group of girlfriends could visit San Gimignano, a medieval hilltown in central Tuscany.   The afternoon could be spent wondering through the tiny town's meandering streets (after they helped you recover from the forty-five minute roller-coaster of a bus ride).  You could sip wine, soak up the sun, and marvel at both the built and natural landscape.  You could savor the slow pace of the day.  And maybe, as you take in the quiet countryside, you could reflect on your year of travel drawing to a close, and on the realization that where you go is not nearly as important as who you share the journey with.

San Gimignano:

švestky na silnici

Have you ever had one of those moments when you find yourself in an extraordinary situation and all you can think to yourself is, how on earth did I get here??  Such was the feeling I had when, in early December, I found myself at the Prague's Smetana Opera House seeing a production of Verdi's Nabucco.  I can't tell you a thing about Nabucco, as it was sung in Italian and translated into Czech. I can recall instead the stirring music, the warmth of the hall compared to dreary cold of that day, the plush velvet seats, and the overwhelming sense that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. 

Prague was never on my must-see list of places to visit.  Unlike France, Ireland, and Italy (stay tuned), Prague was an unexpected destination, a place I ended up in only because a couple of friends suggested we go for a long weekend.  But what a discovery it was.  It's an exquisite city.  The Old Town especially, where all of these pictures were taken, has the grandeur of a cultural capital and the misty, cobble-stoned road eerieness of a small village.  Prague was the first and only eastern European city that I visited during my year abroad.  It was both a reminder of how much I had seen and how much I still had left to see. 

Prague:

The Charles Bridge:

I need to go back just to take better pictures.

living in Leuven

I've deliberately avoided divulging personal details throughout this blog.  Why do you need  to know about me, I reasoned.  Just make what you want of the pictures.  But Twenty-something Travels is forcing me to rethink that position. All travel is personal.  Whether undertaken for school or business or pleasure, it ultimately an individual trying to understand this new place that they're a part of.  The following are not just a random collection of buildings and streets; they are places that became a part of my daily life during the year of college I spent living in Leuven.

The main library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.  I probably should have spent more time on the inside.

Instead, I spent it here:

One of two main shopping streets.  Although the black, thick-heeled, high-top military boots I bought here have long since passed, I still wear the vibrant, multi-colored scarf purchased at the store (winkel) on the left.

And here:

A pedestrian street lined on both sides from beginning to end with restaurants.  Every one I tried was delicious, especially the specialty pizza place, Quo Vadis, and the upscale Troubadour.  It's also the ideal place to take family members if they happen to be visiting on your birthday.  

Saint Michael's Church, the lone example of Baroque architecture in a town full of gothic.  Note the couple at the base of stairs to give you a sense of its immense size.  I have to admit that I never actually went in there, but I passed it everyday on my way to class.