If you find yourself compelled to come back to this page from time to time, you will surely discover that I ADORE books.  I put that out there now to illustrate the fact that, yes, I am aware that one traditionally begins such a project with a very brief dedication placed elegantly before the title page.  A very small name or several words or perhaps at most a sentence so as not to frighten the reader away before they even begin.  The requisite acknowledgement section, then, belongs at the end, where the writer can safely tuck the expected gratitudes owed for the successful completion of their project, and the reader (unlike the watchers of fancy awards shows (of which I am certainly one)) can safely skip right over them without feeling they have missed anything important.

Since I intend for this to be an ongoing project, I am going to plop my acknowledgements right here at the beginning.  You have been warned.  Please do feel free to take this opportunity to skip right ahead to the end of this post if you’d rather hear about Prague.  No offense taken. I do completely understand that stories and photos of great European cities are infinitely more intriguing to most than some stranger’s adoration of their treasured few.  And thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you may indeed skip ahead with the merest motion of your index finger!

But this is my blog, so for my own amusement- here are my acknowledgements.

First and foremost I must credit my boundless enthusiasm for travel and stories to my grandfather.  Through his ebullient example and encouragement through the first 23 years of my life, he inspired my great desire to see the world, to be ever learning and asking and telling the stories of what I’d discovered.  He lived a life of enormous passion, boundless enthusiasm and energy, and no excuses.  Near the end of his life, against the advice of his doctors and the wishes of his family, he took himself off to a reserve in Mexico to float in a tiny boat amongst the whales.  The world is too full of wonders to stay complacently in one place if you have the ability to go.

Next, I credit my dear mother for bestowing on me my passion for reading.  On many more occasions than I would like to admit (though I constantly do and probably will again in the course of my writings here), she has coerced me into reading something I had absolutely no desire to touch, and my life has been changed.  Though, much to her chagrin (as she is a librarian) I do take after my grandfather and purchase all of my books rather than check them out of the library.  I dearly love to treat them with scribbles and underlinings and other marginalia* making them irrevocably mine and then arranging them lovingly on my shelves while dreaming of my future designated home library.  (Hopefully a skybrary as the one found beginning at mark 7:23 in this video – I want to be Liz Gilbert when I grow up).  My mother has also been my most cherished traveling companion to date.  She happily lets me plan everything and professes to thoroughly enjoy the ingenuity of my itineraries.  Who can ask for more than that?

I would also like to thank my father for swooping into Boston at a rather low point in my life and intentionally or not redirecting my thinking out of a rut and towards a more free, creative, and expansive dream of my future.  He has provided much appreciated support, encouragement, and applause as well as the incessant nagging required to keep me chipping away long enough to get this thing off the ground.  He has also encouraged and helped to shape my amateur interest in photography.  Most of the photos in this blog are and will be mine- but a few of them are his.

Finally, as I have already hinted, I owe ever so much- especially in the choice of my chosen destinations- to my favorite books.  There are too many to name here and I am continually adding to the list, so rather than list them off, I will instead pepper them throughout my posts in spots where they either a) inspired a visit, b) accompanied me along the way and thus are irrevocably associated with the destination in my mind, or c) where something I encountered (or have just written) reminded me of one of them.

And now, if you are still with me, let’s take off for Prague!

 

*RECOMMENDED READING:

Ex Libris: Anne Fadiman. This dear lady’s marvelous essays perfectly mirror my own relationship to books and reading.