I have found that every project becomes doable the moment you find your go-to person. It happens the first week at a new job, when you suddenly identify the one co-worker who knows everything from how to raid the office suply cabinet to where the best place is for lunch--and is willing to share such information even though you stop by their desk to ask inane questions approximately 37 times a minute. It happens when you're reporting a story and by luck, you call up the right source -- the one who loves to talk and who tells you to call back any time with whatever questions you have, and sounds like she means it. It happens when you are working on a team, and you finally figure out which is the person you can trust to get the job done. Every time I find the go-to person, my whole body relaxes. Whatever the project at hand, I know it's now going to be a piece of cake.

I have found my go-to person in Prague. Her name is Tanya and she works at one of the several hundred information shops that litter the tourist section of Prague. I stopped in today to buy a good map. The maps I have in my guide books are all of those 5-block cross-section kind that are of no help if you want to step anywhere off the beaten path. Just her selling-a-map manner was so good, it was clear this was a person who knew a hell of a lot more about Prague than I did. Here, indeed was a go-to-girl for me.

I pelted her with questions about where to go in town and she was helpful and smily and really all around wonderful. I asked her if she had train information on her terminal. I need to go to Benatky this week, a town on the river Iser about 22 miles Northeast of Prague. Tycho Brahe lived at Benatky castle for just under a year, and I want to get a first-hand view of it. It's supposed to be a beautiful place, Tycho often compared it to Venice in his letters. Tanya said she did have train information and I told her I wanted to go to Benatky on Wednesday. After typing on her keyboard for a while she looked at me and said she could get me there, but it would take five trains to do so. I was startled and said there must be some mistake, the town I wanted to go to was very near by.

It was her turn to look startled. "Wait, you want to go to Benatky in the Czech Republic?!?" I said yes, and she began to laugh so hard she couldn't speak. It turns out that Benatky isn't just reminiscent of Venice, the word actually means Venice. She'd been trying to get me to Italy.

In the history of the store, I was the absolute first person who had ever walked in and asked for a train to Venice, Czechoslovakia.