Emily Carlson travel

  The Café Savoy, a throwback to an earlier era in Prague. By EVAN RAIL, The New York Times FORGET all thoughts of Kafka, post-communist grit and writers trying to craft the Great American Novel, as most of the old ideas about Prague are now very far off the mark. Instead, expect a modern, extremely liveable city that is among the most Western (both literally and figuratively) of all the former Communist-bloc capitals, where long-held myths about Eastern Europe are exploded on a daily basis. The cosmopolitan Czech capital is home to better restaurants than you might find in many American cities, and a ... Read Full Story

  A doorman at Le Baron in Tokyo, which is harder to find than its parent club in Paris. Ko Sasaki for The New York Times It was the middle of the night as a Japanese skateboarder and concert promoter named Chris led me through Tokyo 's Shibuya district — a sort of futuristic Times Square — with its hyper-commercial vertical sprawl of glass office towers and flashing neon billboards advertising the latest cellphones and pop stars. We threaded past the sleeping shopping malls and shiny multiplexes, down a series of winding streets and through a stone pedestrian tunnel, until we emerged beneath raised ... Read Full Story

By DEVLIN BARRETT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of air travelers may find going through airport security much more complicated this spring, as the Bush administration heads toward a showdown with state governments over post-Sept. 11 rules for new driver's licenses. By May, the dispute could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes, but privacy advocates called that a hollow threat by federal officials. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act's rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states ... Read Full Story

This picture is the lasting memory I will always have of Brussels. I was there with my friend for only about a day and a half. Brussels was our layover on the way to Amsterdam. I don't even know how we decided to see this monstrosity, but we took a really really long train ride because we wanted to see what it was all about. It wasn't really worth the trip. There were all these funky rooms inside the atom, built for the World's Fair. It might have been cool when it was first built, but now it's just odd. I remember one of ... Read Full Story

It was Valentine's weekend and my friend Nicole and I didn't really want to sit in London and watch all our friends go out with their dates. What was the other last minute option? Go on our school sponsored trip to Liverpool, England and see the Beatles museum. Sure, why not? After a train, a bus, and a very long walk, we arrived at the Holiday Inn. We were crabby, but we got a free dinner, which is a VERY big plus, almost worth the trip if you've been living in London with a very strong pound and a weak dollar. On Valentine's Day, ... Read Full Story