A tragedy prompted this American to build a new life in Prague. 25 years later, he’s still there | CNN

He’s been living in Prague for well over two decades, but Ryan Goodwin, originally from Colorado, says the awe still hits him each time he crosses the city’s landmark Charles Bridge and looks up at the medieval castle sprawling across the skyline. “It never ceases to amaze me,” Goodwin tells CNN Travel. He says local writer Franz Kafka best sums up the Czech capital’s sustained allure in the quote: “Prague never lets you go … This dear little mother has sharp claws.” “I think that’s so true,” adds Goodwin. “This culture. The city. It just grabs you … It’s been a really fun life. I’m glad that I chose this place.” The Czech Republic wasn’t on Goodwin’s radar while growing up in Colorado — he’d barely left the US before his first trip there — but his perspective on life changed completely in 1999, when a tragedy occurred at his former school, Columbine High School. From that moment on, Goodwin, who was in college elsewhere at the time of the deadly school attack ranked as one of the worst mass shootings in US history, says he was fiercely determined to leave. “I wanted to go away, and that was sort of like the moment that did it,” he says