Law, Partially

In the year before Christine started school, we passed several long and (usually) enjoyable weekends in various European cities. The list of desired destinations was, and still is, long. Moscow didn't make the first cut. But a Russian made us an offer we couldn't refuse. I was excited to return to Moscow, having visited once before, in January 2004. While the president is the same, I'd heard that a lot else has changed. Namely, the Russian state became a lot wealthier after 2004 with the price of exported Russian oil reaching a long-sustained higher average price. We found that the Moscow mayor has invested a lot to enhance the city's livability. When I visited before, I stayed in a gigantic hotel next to the Kremlin designed to house thousands of partisans for the erstwhile party conferences of the 20th century. That brutal concrete hulk met the wrecking ball since then and is now a park with paths through planted native fauna up a hill that offers views of St. Basil...

Bob's been travelling a lot, but just now he finally stepped behind the Iron Curtain. In Prague, we hoped to find a 19th century cityscape, peppered with gothic churches and imposing communist block buildings, difficult to pronounce heavily accented words, diverse pilsner beers for less than $2/pint, and restaurant bills under $30. We did find some good bargains, but at many places, the prices looked more like London prices. Some places straight up gouged us. For what we did find in Prague was a stream of tourists like we have never seen before. Look at how many people are on that bridge, below. Prague is not a large city, and the tourist sights are in a compact area and limited in number. I don't have the statistics to prove it, but I believe the number of tourists per tourist site would be much higher in Prague than in Paris and London, which although much bigger cities, they also have so many more sights to visit. Over the past dozen years, I think the secret about Pragu...