My adventure was a nonstarter, so I headed back to the safety of my Western hotel.
Dubai may not have had much to offer my need for culture and connection, but it certainly did have a comfort zone that wasn't unwelcome. Still, there is a big difference between feeling safe and being mollycoddled with all the comforts of home.
3. Prague, Czech Republic
I was excited when I learned I would be going to Prague this last summer. My brother had only great things to say about it, so I looked forward to my trip, my first to an Eastern European capital.
Prague rests on the banks of the River Vltava (the Moldau, in German) in central Bohemia, and it has been a political, cultural and economic center of the Czech people for more than a millennium.
When I was a child growing up in London, the rumor in the schoolyard was that once you went behind the Iron Curtain, people stopped smiling, and for many years I believed that was true. Communism, I surmised, required a person to keep a straight face at all times.
I was wrong, of course -- it's one of those childhood misconceptions that somehow takes on a life of its own -- but what I did find was a certain untouchability.
Prague is a stunning city, like a fairy tale, really, when you're on the outside looking in.
On the inside, tourist masses move along the Charles Bridge like zombies, somehow cutting off access to the locals. So it was a struggle to connect, but once I found them, the locals were, well, they struck me as cold, unhelpful and practically unapproachable.
And I had to wonder if my childhood misperception was somehow prescient.
Maybe my judgment was clouded because the weather was dreary and miserable, although this was the height of summer. I still don't know for sure. But it seemed to me that the older generation held onto that Iron Curtain mind set. I felt an East versus West vibe. I tried to start conversations only to be shot down with a grunt. One woman even mumbled something about how President Bush was the reason for all wars. I didn't bother to tell her I am English.
My encounters with my peer group were better. I did manage to strike up several rewarding conversations with people my age, but to this day, I remember Prague as the City that Never Smiles.
2. Moscow
The capital of Russia is a magnificent city, especially the central district that houses the Kremlin and the famed Red Square, the centuries-old center of Moscow and home to the famous St. Basil's Cathedral.
