Law, Partially

To start November and get to Spain, we flew a godforsaken European airline, Air Europa, that got us safely to Madrid, but disgusted us and annoyed us in the process. (The timings weren't good for Milan-Madrid flights, and this airline offered the most convenient time.) I missed the first night in Madrid with food poisoning courtesy of a Milanese airport ham sandwich -- not recommended. We had several hopes and goals for the Spanish leg of the Great Adventure to the South -- not all of them culinary -- Goya, Alhambra, and Mezquita. In Madrid, we wanted to soak up the Spanish cosmopolitanism of the imperial capital and see the Museo del Prado, hoping to recreate our Louvre success with our nascent art fan. In Andalucia, we wanted to explore the tapas heartland and the multicultural history (again, with the multicultural family's interest in multiculturalism...). I was worried how Bobby would react to his constricted pasta supply in Spain. Back in London, Bobby would almost a...

Slovenia is a neat little country wedged between Italy, Austria, and Croatia. It formerly was the northwest hind of Yugoslavia. Because of its former political association, for those unfamiliar, we may be likely to pity it, associating Yugoslavia with the Iron Curtain, Europe's last continental war (until the present, unfortunate civil war in eastern Ukraine), ethnic cleansing, and the laughable Yugo car . But it's far from pitiable; in fact it's prosperous. On the Triple Bridge right in the heart of Ljubljana's center, at the base of the castle. We regrettably walked (trudged?) up that hill a few days later. I admit I didn't know much about the place and have in the past confused Slovenia with Slovakia, both of which were part of Yugoslavia. Slovenia should stand out, though. When you visit, its confidence and health are palpable. No wonder it was the first Eastern Block country to join the Eurozone ( i.e. , switched its currency to the euro, in 2007) an...

You may expect these London residents to take vacations in Europe. Some of us have not explored much of Colorado before, and we were going there anyway for Molly's Keystone wedding extravaganza. Molly had three days of festivities planned, and the FD Linges turned the trip into an eight day road trip from the southwest of Colorado to the center. There will be plenty of time for -- and there will be many -- European vacations. But, first, Colorado. We flew from London to Dallas to Durango (Bobby's tenth and eleventh flights). Going through immigration in Dallas was a surprisingly painless experience. In Chicago we wait in much longer lines and always get harassed because Christine's immigration documents are out of date because the US government can't be bothered to update them (so we have government agents mad at us for suffering from government inefficiency -- pretty much sums up federal government logic). Durango is an old mining town on a plateau in southwestern ...