Law, Partially

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...

We had several goals in visiting Paris this fall: introduce the city to our new travel buddy, hazard a trip to the Louvre with a toddler in tow, and find some parks, pastries, and wine. In all regards, the trip was a delirious success. Paris is the most favored city -- after Tokyo -- for Christine and me. We both studied here: me during the autumn several years before Christine in the spring. We also passed some time here with my family during another deliriously successful trip in 2014 (also in the autumn). Bobby even visited the city when he was just a little pain au chocolate  baking in his mum, and she and I came for the French Open during the famous spring 2016 floods in central Paris (lots of rained-out tennis that week...). The Louvre is a particular favorite of mine. As a student, I had class in the Louvre most Wednesday nights. It's easy to dismiss it as "touristy," but it is also an unrivaled trove of the world's cultural artifacts kept in one of the gra...

This summer, Bobby made his second trip to the Tate Modern. The occasion was to view a biographical exhibit of Picasso's works from 1932. Bobby, in this year, Picasso was painting to stay relevant after having already achieved fame but also dealing with the dissolution of his marriage (caused, of course, by his infidelity) -- why is this not resonating more with you?! Turns out, the day became not so much about a series of paintings as the timeline of life, including Picasso's and our own, as well as everyday lessons in parenting. Successful adventures with our young boy require us to get right the timings of naps, meals, and snacks. This particular Sunday, we messed it up. The ideal museum trip -- at least when you want to meaningfully observe the works and read the descriptions -- requires the boy to sleep in the Ergo Baby carrier while Baba soaks in the museum. Otherwise, the boy would prefer to run through the museum, or if he's super tired and irritable, just throw a...

While our little boy had taken ill on his long weekend in the Cotswolds, a healthy bouncing baby boy across the Atlantic was clamoring to meet him. Three best buddies hanging out at Rachel House. The London Linges have spent a good amount of time in DC over the years, making it our most visited city outside of the ancestral homeland in Cedar Rapids. Our last days in the US before moving to London were spent as guests of Gugu in DC. See last year's blog entry  and  the other . The year before, DC was the last trip of Mum and Baba before Bob was born. August is vacation time in Europe, more so on the Continent than in the UK, but August in a UK office is slow, and many London restaurants close for the month. So fourteen months after our most recent, very enjoyable stay in DC, we were packing up in London for a two week trip to DC. There we expected to find the 2018 Catalina Wine Mixer, with Linges from far and wide coming to adore the new babe, Lincoln Kevin. But ...

London is one of the greatest -- arguably the greatest -- museum city in the world. London also has some of the worst weather of a major city in the world. Chicago has the extremely cold winters; Singapore has the unreasonable heat and humidity; London has sunless winters where every day brings a slow drizzle of precipitation with a temperature just high enough to keep it all from turning to snow (but a few degrees colder and it's snowmageddon: all trains stop everywhere). Chris, Bob, and I filled many cold, weekend days with adventures to and in London's famous museums. It's not that Bob doesn't like museums, he just doesn't appreciate them. He seems to take the triumphs of human civilization as a given and hasn't shown a great interest in the lineage that brought us here, or its documentation in museums. He does like museums, though, because they present wide open rooms for him to unleash his best run-walking skills, regardless of who may be standing in his ...