It's strange how the act of travel so frequently defies our expectations. Rarely does a country feel precisely as we imagined it, and no matter how many stories we've heard or photos we've seen, nothing compares to living and breathing the real thing. One thing I've learned from travel is that no country or city is a fixed constant, that they are always evolving, and places never feel quite the same when you return to them for a second or third visit. I think part of this is physical change - change of weather, new buildings, fashion trends, and so on - but the traveller's internal changes can also have a marked effect on the surroundings. Your mood, your energy, your circumstances...these can change the atmosphere or quality of a place in immeasurable ways.
