The first expectation of a good travel story is that something went wrong. No one wants to hear about the perfectly uneventful time you spent in Istanbul. Not even you.

Next time, try harder.

When we were younger, before we had children, Mimi went on the Internet and found a seven-day, all-inclusive vacation to Costa Rica for next to nothing. There were colour pictures of large white birds and scary-looking crocodiles and trees filled with howler monkeys, along with a young couple walking hand in hand on a sundrenched beach while a dark-skinned man in a white jacket followed them around, in case they needed a towel or another drink.

I came home from the trip with a sunburn, a great story about Mimi having the top of her swimsuit ripped off on a jungle water-slide, and a dozen photographs of some very large iguanas.

But I don’t remember feeling that my social conscience had been improved.

The resort had been a sanitary bubble designed to shield you from the realities of culture and to limit your interaction with the local people. They were there to serve you, and you were there in your role as an ATM with a camera.

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, walking down a street that looks a great deal like many other streets in the world.

“Besides the Jewish cemetery,” says Mimi, “there’s also a couple of famous churches.”

After years of travelling the world with Mimi, looking for the Crow bundle and trying to find out what happened to Uncle Leroy, the last thing I want to do is go into another church.

Of any sort.

To be sure, the things are historic, and the architecture is remarkable. But all I see are monuments to indulgence and power.

“How about we skip the churches.”

Mimi sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s check out the cemetery, and then we can stop at a café.”

So we walk over to the Jewish cemetery, but when we get there, we discover that there is a long line of tourists outside the ticket booth.

“We have to pay to get into a cemetery?”

“You check the prices,” says Mimi. “I’m going to take a peek.”

Taking a peek is one of the things that Mimi does best. When we moved to Guelph and were looking for a house, Mimi would march onto porches and look in windows. Once, she leaned a ladder against a house and climbed up so she could check out the kitchen.

Today, she ambles over to an iron gate and peers through the grating. I pretend to price the tickets. Mimi waves me over.

“You can see some of the gravestones from here.”

What I can see of the cemetery is disturbing. I don’t know what I had expected, but this wasn’t it.

“Why are all the gravestones so close together?”

Mimi checks the guidebook.