"Oh, the places you will go"

My first international experience was to Thailand in 1994. I was a 14 year old kid that had dreamed of nothing but foreign lands for all of her short life and there I was. The leader of our group read us the Dr Suess book "Oh, The Places You will Go" and I took that as my mantra. I wanted to "go places". I spent the next five years of my life raising money, working after school and pinching every penny so that I could spend my summers abroad. Before my 20th birthday I had been to Thailand twice, India, Bolivia and Russia. But spending a few weeks every summer exploring the unknown wasn't enough. I needed to live there.

So, I got a degree in teaching English as a means to take myself globe-trotting and when I finished at Ohio University I got myself a job in Central Europe. I landed in the Czech Republic with no expectations, no plans to stay or to wander, no idea what would come next.

And here I sit, eight years later, in the most beautiful city in the world. I didn't know back then that I would marry into this deep culture and rich land. I didn't know I'd grow and learn and change. I didn't know I'd be happier than I ever expected. But I am.

I'll be blogging some of those happy events over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to the adventures of what happens when traveling becomes living....