How to Feel Young Again

1. Buy a ticket on an overnight ferry from one European port to another.


2. Spend the day sightseeing, sweating, dodging smokers, and putting lots of mileage on your legs.


3. Board the ferry in desperate need of a hot shower, a clean bathroom, and a cool, comfortable place to sleep.


4. Do without all three.


5. Sleep across from your main squeeze, each in your own single bunk.


6. Wake up at 4AM to the sound of a crew member announcing your arrival two hours earlier than you were told to expect.


7. Wipe the accumulated dried sweat, sunscreen, and grime from the key parts of your body with a hand towel drenched in hot water.


8. File off the ferry amid backpack-toting twenty-somethings.


9. Walk in the dark, in a drizzle, following vague directions in your guidebook, in the hope of finding the city's 24-hour internet cafe.


10. Wipe the cigarette ashes off the computer station, tune out the head-banging American music, and write this post.