Just leave me on this hilltop

As he promised, it was incredible.

One of the many serendipitous joys of my life as a professor was meeting Dejan Gajšek. When I started my innovation project on virtual reality a few years ago, I quickly found that the storage and distribution of large 360° video and still images on our own computer servers was not at all practical. Dejan was the marketing director of VIAR360, a startup company focused on providing just that service to VR publishers.

VIAR360 is a Slovenian company that had sent Dejan to Seattle to develop the U.S. market. Typical of Slovenians, he and the rest of the company were helpful to a fault – no mean trick considering how unreasonable the demands of journalists can be. With their help, we astounded our peers by streamlining what was once a days-long editing process to the point that my VR reporters had 360° images on the Columbia Missourian website within an hour of a news event.

I was so pleased that when I took a vacation to the Pacific Northwest, I made a point of going to coffee with Dejan in downtown Seattle. And as I’ve come to expect of his countrymen, he made of point of saying “You’ll have to come visit us. I want to show you my country.”

And last weekend he did. “Be prepared,” he said. “I promise this will be incredible.”

Dejan grew up near Celje, the third largest city in Slovenia, tucked between low mountains and rich valleys. It is famous, in part, because in the Celje Counts planted castles on those peaks like Sam Walton scattered Walmarts through the Midwest.

So Dejan, of course, guided us through the main Celje Castle and the fairytale streets of Old Celje. The city also hosts several museums, including the best display of an actual Roman road I have seen (including when in Rome).

But, he assured us, the best was still to come. He took us on a winding drive through the countryside near Celje, then up and up a mountain road to his parent’s “weekend house”near the tiny village of Javorje (“Maple”).

I think I now know the exhilaration that led Peter Mayle to his Year in Provence. The hilltop view as we drove up to the tall but compact yellow house was spectacular from any angle. Nothing, however, matched the panorama of mountains and valley behind the house, where a small vineyard clung to a steep hillside.

Down among those gnarled 400 vines, Joze and Milena Gajšek were pruning off the old growth and tying leaders to the wires to support next season’s bounty. Dejan’s dad works for a large titanium processing firm and his mom is a mathematics teacher, but weekends and holidays find them lovingly tending vines, picking grapes and crafting fine white wine in their cellar room.

There is the work we must do to live, then there is the work we live to do.

After a tour of the wine-making room, we retired to the patio. Milena laid out a bounty of smoked meats, fine cheeses, breads and fruits. Joze brought pitchers of his finest wine. Dejan provided translations when the four of us stumbled for words.

We didn't always need those translations. We shared our pride in our children, our love for our homes, our lives at or near retirement, the special joy that comes from making things with your own hands. Thousands of miles, centuries of tradition and the tongue-twisting of unfamiliar languages separated us, but age, experience and the simple trials of life spoke volumes in our eyes. On that special hilltop, there were no borders, no bounds.

  

Dejan’s talent at technology marketing has taken him to several countries – and he’ll likely try more – but I’ve never seen a young man so comfortable and proud as he was as he shared his little part of Slovenia with us.

We watched the sun go down over the mountains, snuggled into warm comforters for the night and watched light dance into the valleys the next morning. I kept finding myself back on that patio, soaking up the magic of the hilltop. Dejan lived up to his promise.

I would have happily just stayed there, but that is not the fate of a traveler. We drove back down the mountain past farms, vineyards and villages to Slovenia’s second largest city, Maribor. More medieval majesty, more fine food and a peek at the world’s oldest grape vine (picked with pride for 400 years).

And then the train back through the river valley to Ljubljana, our apartment home-away-from-home and preparation for Monday’s class.

Thankfully, the mind navigates where feet can no longer tread. When life next requires me to pause for a deep breath, I know where I can go.

A little hilltop in Slovenia.

Translation: “This tastes great”

It only took a moment, but suddenly it is spring in Slovenia.

Cecile once had me convinced that Earth is a cube, rather than a ball. When we lived in the far northern latitudes, winter lingered unbearably. Then in what seemed an instant, Nature rolled out the sunshine, flowers and smiles – we had rotated over the edge of the cube.

I’m sure my scientist friends would go crazy at just the mention of another fake news theory, but it certainly appeared that the weather went over the edge this week. The Spring Equinox took Ljubljana from wet and gray to warm and sunny overnight.

It was not just the flowers that bloomed. You could see spring on the faces and coatless shoulders of people everywhere.

The ancient Brits were so excited about this annual change that they built Stonehenge. The wise folks in Ljubljana passed on the backbreaking stonework and opted instead for the diet-breaking Open Kitchen. Each Friday until the world dulls again in October, great cooks, fine restaurants and simple purveyors of good food pack the market square in the old city center with booths offering an astounding variety of food.

We are not just talking about Slovenian traditional dishes here – though there were plenty of those. The fare ranged from Slavic to Mexican to Thai and beyond. The double adventure for us was that most of the posted menus were in Slovenian, so we let our noses and taste buds do the translations.

Friday was never so tasty. I tried my first horse meat burger (a Central European staple that tastes a whole lot like a beef burger), Cecile tried the roast pig with kraut and potatoes,  and we both gorged ourselves on an odd-looking concoction of scrambled crepes topped with chocolate and berry sauce.

You really had to be there to see and appreciate that last dish. A muscular young man poured batter into enormous frying pans, let the mixture set and then chopped, stirred and tossed it until it looked like a big plate of small dumplings. It was rich, heavy and a true waistline expander.
Good food, good people, good memories. Open Kitchen was our perfect segue to our next Slovenian adventure – a trip to the wine country.

Captions: With the hungry crowd; The horse burger' Scrambling giant crepes.

Fulbright impact

One of the delights of the Fulbright program is that you get to experience the reach it has into the academic world.

Thursday I attended an event where Dr. Sonja Merljak Zdovc released her new media literacy book for Slovenian children. She spent 2001-02 as a Fulbright scholar at Mizzou, then went back to finish her Ph.D. She now is a well-known newspaper columnist and edits Časoris, an online publication that provides news, entertainment, and cultural information for students and their teachers.

She and I arrived at the University of Missouri the same year -- although I came the summer of 2001 and she arrived at one of America's most chaotic days: 9-11. She has fond memories of the school and the professors who helped her launch a stellar career, especially Jacqui Banaszynski and Don Ranly.

Meeting her was clear evidence that Senator Fulbright's idea works -- both knowledge and peace grow when you let scholars share their lives in person instead of just pondering faceless names in a text.

History, theirs and ours

I love the historical aspects of tourism. It is hard for me to pass a museum, old edifice or monument without stopping. I’m the guy who irritates his children by holding up the whole family while I read every word of the historical marker.

But the history I enjoy most in my travels is the history that comes from experiencing the places and people we visit.

Cecile and I recently had a guided tour of the current exhibit at the Museum of the Press in Ljubljana. The exhibit - which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the national newspaper Delo -  displays a remarkable collection of newspaper front pages that reflect key events in recent history.  The front pages from the decades appealed  to my love of history. I could follow the headlines of the history of Slovenia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the socialist era as part of a cobbled-together Yugoslavia and on to modern independence as a small but intriguing country.

Because the exhibit's focus is international, I also rediscovered newspapers from the U.S. and beyond that I know well and stories that were part of my life both as a journalist and a citizen.

The joy of joys in our tour, however, was our reunion with the man who assembled the collection: Ali Žerdin.

In the U.S., we'd say Ali Žerdin and Tadeja Jelovšek are one of the power couples of Slovenia. Both have Ph.D.s and both are well-known in their professional circles. Tadeja is an appeals court judge, currently on special assignment directing the Slovenian Judicial Training Center, which offers continuing education for the country’s judges, prosecutors and court officials. Ali is an author, pundit and the well-known editor of the Saturday political and cultural special section of Delo, Slovenia’s leading newspaper. My students here are far more impressed that I know Ali than they are of any American journalistic notoriety I tried to brag upon.


But to us, they are just two of the most generous people you could call “friends.” We met Ali and Tadeja through her sister, Urska Jelovšek Lenart, who at the time was a student advisor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Urska introduced us to the you’ve-got-to-experience-it to-believe-it Slovenian tradition of all-out hospitality. We stayed with her parents when we visited in 2012, had an eager and knowledgeable tour guide in her brother, Martin, and of course quickly connected with Tadeja and Ali.

It was Ali who in turn introduced me to Marko Milosavljević at the University of Ljubljana’s journalism program, which - seven years later - led to my Fulbright fellowship here.

Ali and Tadeja came to our Columbia home during a visit to her sister, but you would think a friendship with minimal contact over thousands of miles and many years would be awkward. It isn’t. We recognized each other’s smiles, were equally excited by the fresh produce at the market and were eager to engage in the children-food-shopping banter of people who are comfortable with each other.

That’s exactly what I look for when I travel. I truly love ancient hunks of stone and cobbled streets from another era. But it is the people with whom we build our own histories who make travel, as Mark Twain said, “fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

Cheer like a dragon

There are many things that need translation when you are abroad. Nothing, however, is more universal than the emotional joy of a sports fan.

Cecile and I got great midfield tickets to football – aka soccer – rivalry match of Olympija Ljubljana versus Maribor. These are the two top teams in the country, representing the two largest cities. You have to keep in mind that the whole country of Slovenia has a smaller population than Chicago - but then - a White Sox-Cubs game packs a lot of emotion into the stands.

I’ve never quite understood Americans who think soccer is boring. Even a game with low points (this ended in a scoreless tie), the action is constant – much like a hockey match. The clock in soccer is real. It drives me crazy that the last five minutes of an American football game can take a half hour. In soccer the ref can add a few minutes to make up for injury delays on the field, but basically after 90 minutes it's over. There are no time outs, no stopping the clock for a television break, and no pause to reset the chains.

And there are no cheerleaders, officially. But just look to the seats at the goal ends to find the fans who really take their sport seriously.

Olympija Ljubljana has the Green Dragons, named for both the team colors and the mascot of their city. On the other side of the field was Viole Maribor, named for the purple jerseys of their players.

These are the “ultras,” fans so fanatical that police in riot gear station themselves nearby. Each group has loud drums, choreographed cheers, banners and fireworks. Well, maybe not “fireworks” but flaming flares that let you know with no uncertainty that these fans are enthusiastic. They also fill the entire stadium with lingering smoke that neither fans nor players seem to mind.

Fast action on the field

Meanwhile in the “regular” stands, fans are only less enthusiastic by degree. It didn’t matter that my Slovene is limited to a handful of pleasantries, I knew exactly when a favorite player got the ball or how deep was the disappointment when a shot narrowly missed the net. Within minutes, Cecile and I could chant “O-lym-pija” like natives.

And, of course, we did.

Caption: With the fans; The Green Dragon cheering section (left) literally erupts; Fast action on the field.

Smok’n, the Slovenian way

Barbecue in Slovenia? Oh yes. And even the purists would cheer.

Cecile and I were looking for a culinary adventure the other night and saw a notice for Kralj Zara BBQ Restaurant just off Kongresni Trg in old Ljubljana.   Coming from an area where arguments about the nuances of Kansas City versus St. Louis versus Memphis barbecue can go on forever, we just had to give it a try.

This was the first time we have eaten barbecue off of a white linen tablecloth. Kralj Zara is an elegant restaurant in the old European style, with a couple of tech nods to modernity, like a large wine cooler and a glass-fronted meat aging cabinet filled with darkened rib-eyes and house-made sausages.

Our waiter was a pro – honestly friendly, gracious with our lack of local knowledge and ever-ready to make our meal more pleasant. And like all Slovenian wait staff, he wasn't angling for a tip.

Barbecue here is much like what the competitive barbecue teams prepare in Missouri. It’s house-smoked meats that need no sauce. We had a platter of baby ribs, baby pork leg, and brisket with incredible pickled apple slices. On the side we had coleslaw (of course!) and truffle French fries. Washed down with German lager.

It was a meat-lover’s heaven. I told Cecile she could just leave me at the table for a few days. I could hang around until it was time to go back for a mess of Buckingham’s finest.

Float my boat and bring on spring

I’m still wearing a jacket, but I know spring is near. The crocuses are blooming in Ljubljana’s Tivoli Park, you can see the forest peeking out of the snow on the mountains, and St. Gregory has cast his light upon the water.

Slovenia constantly delights me with a stream of holidays and festivals that intrigued the American mind. But I have to say that I may take St. Gregory’s Day Eve home with me.

In a world way, way before LEDs, winter was an especially tough time for craft workers. You couldn’t just flip a switch to keep yourself from hammering your thumb while cobbling shoes or catching your beard in the loom. The best you could hope for when winter darkened the skies well before dinner time was to work by the flickering light of a dim candle. You prayed (literally) for the world to turn a notch so the sun once again beamed through your workshop window.

However, back in the 3-digit era (540 – 604 AD, to be precise), calendars and clocks didn’t hang on every wall and it was tough to know when you could really expect spring. St. Gregory knew how to get his people out of the winter doldrums, however.

Sometime about March 20, he threw his light into the water and declared that folks could open their shades once again. His feast day was the first day of spring until another Gregory, the 14th century pope, totally screwed up the calendar and shoved his predecessor’s feast day back to March 12.

Slovenians are doggedly determined to keep little things like a papal decree from ruining their traditions. Remember, this is a country of just 2 million souls that has retained its own language and culture for a thousand years despite being ruled by every bully state to sweep through Europe.

So on the evening of March 11, children all over Slovenia drag their parents down to an appropriate body of water, carrying with them little houses or boats they made of paper, sticks, foam or whatever. Each little house is adorned with small candles and set sail into the waters to bring the light of spring back to their country. Cecile and I went to the Grand Canal in Ljubljana just as the sun was dimming the elegant spire of Trnovo Church. Hundreds of families were making their way to the shore of the canal to launch their little houses.

Of course, it didn’t go quite like a fairy tale. Some of the “houses” were stunning, others were fast food containers and and even and egg carton. Some were bundles of twigs with neither up nor down. Then (remember Pinewood Derby for Boy Scouts?) there were the architectural masterpieces “made” by the kids of very talented parents. But all had candles alight.

We watched a parent lean way over the water to help gently place the glowing vessel in the water, only to find there is a reason boats are supposed to be heavy on the bottom, not the top. My favorite was the little guy who was handed a Dad-crafted masterpiece – then just tossed it out into the middle of the canal like a Labrador’s tennis ball.

Not to worry. It was an evening to remember. Even the least of these lights had meaning in both Slovenian tradition and American observation. The days will be longer again! Flowers will bloom! I can leave that darned jacket at home!

Thanks, St. Gregory.

Being young getting older

How can you beat having a birthday when the city throws a party? 

The party wasn’t just for me, of course. But Cecile and I celebrated my 68th on Saturday at Maslenica Ljubljana, a Slavic celebration of the end of winter - in this case - organized by the Russian ethnic community in Slovenia.

“Colorful” doesn’t even come close to describing the festival. I had only the vaguest comprehension of the words, but the traditional costumes spoke on their own. The stylized dancing told a story of waking the winter-groggy bear, keeping the witch from stealing the sun and celebrating the coming spring. (At least that’s the story without translation.)

Then there was the music. The adult choruses and soloists were very good, but the kids were amazing. Their voices rang out to fill the entire market plaza. I never fail to be impressed by cultures in which young children belt out songs with all their hearts. When I was in school, you couldn’t get a boy to do much more than mumble at the annual music “concert” for parents.

Oh, and the food. What’s a birthday without food? We began with strong expresso and a tiny cookie enjoyed in the sun at an outdoor café. A little later, we tried a giant Russian sort-of-hamburger right off the grill for lunch.

And then there was my “cake.” Slovenians have what they call a rolled dumpling that is unlike anything I have had. It is thin pastry (like soft filo dough) rolled with a type of soft cheese and then covered with sauce – in my case dark chocolate and orange. This was not light puffy stuff. It was so filling that, after splitting one serving, Cecile and I skipped our planned dinner out.

We didn’t need to worry about the calories though. While just enjoying our wandering tour of the old city, we put seven miles on our step counter.

And Sunday? A couple of good books, hot tea and noshing on cheese and Slovenian sausage. My kind of birthday weekend.

Thank you, Ivanka

What a beautiful day! Cool but mostly sunny – just right for a focused trip to central Ljubljana.

Cecile wanted a few skeins of Slovenian yarn to knit with and had read of a yarn shop tucked away on a small ancient street near the river. It had a nice variety of yarn (not that I would really know what constitutes “nice”), so Cecile came away with a good project.

We also stopped at the giant Müller everything-in-one-place store for a few odds and ends – and so I could take a photo of a display shelf I had spotted earlier. Maple syrup! Fresh from Canada, albeit with German labels. I tap a handful of trees on our property and make my own syrup, so have a special appreciation for this honey from trees. I had always assumed that no one outside of North America liked maple syrup, but it looks like our sweet stuff has gone international.

I was also on the hunt for a T-shirt bearing the University of Ljubljana logo. I suppose one consequence of having no collegiate sports is that college logo-wear is rare here. You see shirts and caps from pro teams (including U.S. teams), but almost nothing on the scholastic side. We hit several of the university’s faculty (college or department) buildings scattered around downtown, but came up empty. Only later on the bus going home did I see a student with a hoody that I think was from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. That gives me hope – although journalism students don’t make up as lucrative a market as engineering students.

The main goal of the day, however, was to have coffee with Ivanka Ponikvar. Ivanka is the program specialist at the U.S. Embassy who shepherded me through the Fulbright application process. Without her, I would never have made it the Ljubljana – and I probably would have been rather lost once I got here.

Gracious, friendly and very knowledgeable, Ivanka worked for the international programs at the University of Ljubljana before Yugoslavia broke up and earned Slovenia its own U.S. Embassy – where she now oversees a host of international cooperation programs.

Cecile and I had a delightful time talking with her about both her Slovenian homeland and the U.S., where her son lives. We also discussed setting up some later meetings with Slovenian press people. Journalists cannot help flocking together, you know.

As I told Ivanka, I’m just happy to be here and to be of service any way I can.

Tomorrow is special – my 68th birthday! Cecile is taking me to a festival, then to an outdoor art market and then to a highly recommended Italian restaurant near the university. The best present I could every imagine is to be with the love of my life on the adventure of a life.

Captions: Flags fly at Ljubljana Castle; "Ahornsirup"; A visit with Ivanka.

Lessons taught and learned

I finished my first week of classes at the University of Ljubljana today with a two-hour session in a sophomore reporting classes. It was a very different - but equally pleasant - experience from yesterday, when I spoke to a small graduate student class on trends in journalism. 

As you might expect, the graduate students were much more willing to engage with me and even question me. Almost all of them work in the professional media when not taking classes. While young students just starting, like my sophomores, are all ears and prefer to just listen to what I say, the graduate students have had enough life experience to know that nothing is cut and dried – even if pontificated by someone with a Ph.D.

That meant that I could have a long, Socratic conversation with them that wove its way through the impact of social media on their careers, demographics, new technologies and the logic Walter Williams used to promote the need for journalism schools. We will spin off of that discussion over the next few weeks, adding in deeper looks at a few specialty areas of journalism (investigative, fact-checking, drones, etc.).

The sophomores were bright, but a little more timid. As in almost every undergraduate class I’ve taught, they had retreated to the back row and scattered across the width of the room. That means if you want to make eye contact, your head bounces back and forth as if you were watching a tennis game.

The reporting students were about 19 to 21 and, with only a few exceptions, were from the smaller towns Slovenia. That will be great fodder for discussion later this term. Slovenia has only 2 million citizens, but has 212 municipal governments. That means that there is a city official under every rock. We can have a great time talking about government coverage and the value of hyper-local journalism.

In the end, we broke into a discussion of why they chose to be journalism students. That’s always a hard question for newer students. They know in an ethereal sense that this is a good thing to do, but have difficulty articulating why.

So I challenged them. Why do you want a job that pays poorly, is hard work and makes you unpopular with almost everyone else?

Silence.

I admitted it took many gray hairs and many beers with colleagues, but I can finally say why I became a journalist.

It’s the best job in the world.

I know, I know – that’s more than a little hyperbole. But consider:

· Where else can you vicariously be a heart surgeon one day, a factory worker the next and a politician the third? For anyone who really can’t make up their mind about what they want to do when they grow up, journalism is like hitting the jackpot.

· Who else has the power to make the strong weep, the staid laugh or the confused understand? It usually takes years to realize how much writing well sets you apart from the rest of the world. When you do, however, you can appreciate that your talent is a gift that goes far beyond anything you learned in school.

· Who else gets an inside look at history as it is made every day, then lives to tell about it?

· Who, in the white collar world, goes home every day with their name on something. We are professionals, yes, but we are also craftsmen who proudly take credit for what we offer to the world.

· We make a difference.

When I first came to the University of Missouri, I was both impressed and puzzled by the admonition inscribed over the School of Journalism’s famous entry arch:

“Wise Shall be the Bearers of Light.”

There was no doubt in my mind, however, about the mission given to Missouri journalists on the flip side of that arch as they leave the school:

“The Schoolmaster of the People.”

As I said, we make a difference.

Settling in

Our internal clocks are slowly resetting, meaning we are semi-bright-eyed sometime other than 3 a.m.

Monday was my first day of class, an advanced editing course I’ll share with Marko Milosavljević. I came in halfway through the four-hour class period and spent an enjoyable time letting them know who I am, trying to figure out who they are, and finding some touchstones on the concepts of editing. They are great, bright students who were unafraid to ask questions. Next week I teach the entire four hours myself while Marko attends a meeting.

The University of Ljubljana is huge – more than 40,000 students – but is scattered around the city rather than grouped on one campus.

It has 23 “faculties” or what we would call schools and colleges, some of which are miles apart. Journalism is part of the Faculty of Social Science, which shares a cluster of modern buildings in north Ljubljana with the faculties of administration, economics and education. Students take almost all of their courses in the single faculty of their major, so there is no frantic dash across town for the next class.

Higher education is free in Slovenia, which opens it to students of all classes. My students came from all over the country, from small villages to the capital.

Our apartment is just across a walkway from the Faculty of Social Sciences.

It is small, but well-appointed. The tiny kitchen feels like home to us – it’s about the same size as the one in our 13-foot Scamp travel trailer. Cecile came to Slovenia already a genius at whipping up gourmet meals on a two-burner stove.

Apartment staff clean the apartment daily and deliver fresh linens once a week. There is a fitness center and a free laundry that is complete with irons and ironing boards. Perhaps the best amenity is the doorman, whose name I have yet to decipher but who answers every question with a smile and in perfect English.

As I had no class Tuesday, Cecile and I went downtown to buy some basic supplies for our stay. There great variety in the  central city stores, offering the shopper everything from local honey to antiques to high end fashion.  We had already discovered the Aldi store, which is called Hofer.  The layout is familiar and I could have walked through it blindfolded and done a reasonably job of buying groceries. New to use:  the Müller department store which has everything from food to appliances to perfumes and the latest fashions. I even found maple syrup on its shelves!

We took our time wandering back streets, eating pastry and sitting in the sun in the main square. Ljubljana’s central city is reserved for pedestrians and bicycles. If your feet give out, however, you can hop on one of the electric micro busses that criss cross the area on no apparent schedule. If that is too much effort, you can pull out your phone and sign into Ljubljana Free Wi-Fi and let your fingers do the browsing.

Scattered through the downtown crowd were costumed revelers squeezing the last bit of jocularity out of the pre-Lenten Carnival. One fellow with an incredible sun-ray mask asked me to photograph him with his phone, then posed with me for a selfie.

Tomorrow I meet the graduate students. Adventures in academia.

Captions: Time for class; The short walk to our classrooms; Our little stove; With my sunny reveler and my real sunshine.

Is it time to get up yet?

I love traveling, but sometimes I think the jet lag will do me in. The older I get, the less my brain seems to cope with jetting across time zones.

By today’s standards, our trip from Columbia to Ljubljana was uneventful: A two-hour shuttle ride to St. Louis, a TSA-precheck shortened check-in, a jump to Washington Dulles, then the long flight to Zurich. Another wait and a short hop to Ljubljana.

Other than one ripped suitcase, I can’t complain. But flights today never live up to my memories of a Pan American 707 flight to visit grandparents in London when I was about 12. From the elegant stewardess to the dinner on real china to the roomy seats, everything seemed big, luxurious and welcoming.

What can I say? My behind has grown larger as the seats have become smaller, the lines are longer, the food is more obviously pre-packaged and the cabin staff have the same utilitarian appeal you find at Denny’s.


But there are always pleasant surprises on a trip like this. Zurich’s airport, for instance, is beautiful and rather shockingly (coming after Dulles) efficient. Then the morning sunlight on the Alps out the airplane window was far better than any of the movies I was offered on the porthole-sized screen in front of me.

We arrived in Ljubljana before noon, which was about six sleepless weeks ago to my body. I was easily revived, however, by the big smile and welcoming handshake of Marko Milosavljević. Though we hadn’t seen each other face to face in seven years, we dropped into the warm banter of friends immediately. It’s a phenomenon in academia that I truly love. We see each other only fleetingly at conferences or meetings, but we can keep the warm fires of friendship glowing just through email.

Marko arranged for a very pleasant university-owned apartment just footsteps from the Faculty of Social Sciences where I will teach. Cecile and I quickly moved in, bravely shook off the fact that our bodies thought it was still 0-dark:30 and caught a bus to downtown Ljubljana.

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March 1 was the Dragon Carnival and, although we came in too late to see the parade, the ancient (and pedestrian-only) streets under the looming castle were filled. The pre-Lenten festival is named for Ljubljana's patron mythical beast and is an opportunity to dress in costume, enjoy the sun and eat wonderful marmalade-filled donuts.

Even fortified with a couple of donuts and strong coffee, we faded fast. We bussed home, skipped dinner in lieu of a nap, got up long enough for a snack and then back to bed for the up-and-down fitfulness of body-clock adjustment.

The main events of the festival were over Sunday, but we spent the day wandering around the old city, just enjoying the atmosphere. We lunched at Ribca, a delightful seafood restaurant on the riverfront and reveled in the deep fried tiny anchovies we had longed for since our 2012 visit. It’s one of those rare dishes that I could eat until I exploded – and then die with a smile.

One doesn’t need to rush from tourist site to tourist site when you have six weeks in front of you. So we didn’t. We enjoyed a very leisurely stroll, another donut and coffee and then headed home for an early evening. My work in earnest starts Monday.

Captions: Zurich Airport; Our university apartment; The Bentleys and the Dragon; Festival families; Little fish, big flavor.