Monthly Archives: August 2025

Ljubljana & Zagreb

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We just visited Ljubljana and Zagreb for the first time, so first things first:

Ljubljana is pronounced Loo-blee-aa-nuh. It’s the capital of Slovenia (not Slovakia; that’s Bratislava) and has fewer than 300,000 people. 

Zagreb is the capital and biggest city in Croatia, with about 700,000 people. Yet many American travelers to Croatia never go there. They typically visit Dubrovnik or someplace else along Croatia’s coast.

Both Slovenia and Croatia were part of Yugoslavia, along with Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, which is now called North Macedonia.

If you already knew all of this, I apologize for the review. I didn’t. I knew Slovenia was the home of First Lady Melania Trump and basketball star Luka Dončić. I recognized Dubrovnik as the location for Kings Landing in Game of Thrones. I knew the name of Yugoslavia’s former leader, which was the same as one of the Jackson 5: Tito. 

Pathetic, I know, but I’ve embarked on a trip to remedy my ignorance. During the next several weeks, Champa and I will be exploring the Balkans and then traveling to Italy.

We started in Slovenia, a small gem nestled between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Ljubljana is green and charming, with cobbled streets, historic buildings and a castle. The city center is car-free. Boats glide along the Ljubljanica River. Bicycles ply the streets.

We watched a free outdoor showing of Jaws and then walked back late to our hotel, feeling completely safe.

We also traveled to Lake Bled, a gorgeous spot framed by mountain peaks and a hilltop castle. We walked around the lake (about 6 km) and took a boat to a small island with a historic church. We were joined there by 200 guests about to witness the marriage of two Americans, one of whose family is Slovenian. I doubt I’ll ever see a more fantastic destination wedding. 

We loved Ljubljana and Slovenia, although we weren’t there for long. We traveled next to Zagreb, a two-hour ride on FlixBus.

Zagreb is bigger, reminding us of Moldova in places with its brutalist apartments. Much more striking are its Gothic-Baroque Old Town and the grand buildings of its Lower Town, which are more Austrian and Hungarian. 

We saw the large statue of national hero Ban Josip Jelačić in the central square, with dancers beside it (top photo). We watched a canon explode at noon at Lotrščak tower and then walked inside a giant tunnel built for protection against wartime bombs.

We visited the Museum of Broken Relationships and pondered the many forms of heartbreak. 

Some sights were unexpected, such as a statue honoring the prostitutes of the city’s former red light district, which Champa is admiring in the photo, or a shop featuring Croatia as the birthplace of the men’s necktie (a dubious honor, in my opinion).

We also came across a shop selling spices and other products to the city’s growing Nepalese community, some of whom we chatted with. 

As we embark on our Balkan adventure, our initial stops in Ljubljana and Zagreb confirm something I’ve discussed previously, which is that Americans who stick to familiar destinations are missing out on some amazing places. Both cities were beautiful, fascinating and relatively inexpensive.

As Tito himself might have said, visiting them is as easy as one, two, three, and as simple as Do, Re, Mi.

Goodbye to Paper

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I can’t paper this over any longer: We’ve had reams of fun together, Paper, but now it’s over.

I used to mail about a dozen paper checks every month to pay our bills. Now several months may pass before I write even one.

My mailbox is bare except for occasional junk mail or letters. It’s no longer filled with bills, advertisements, magazines and correspondence.

My bookshelves, which once held many hundreds of books, are emptier, too. They now hold fewer than one hundred books, many of which I helped produce, received from author friends or feel an emotional attachment to. I still read extensively, as you can see in my annual “top ten” lists (such as last year’s), but I generally download books or borrow hardcovers from the library, so our shelves remain uncluttered.

Photos? Yup, those are now digital, too. I had so many photo albums that they almost reached to the ceiling if I stacked them. Then I culled and digitized them — a huge task —and moved them onto storage discs and the cloud. They’re organized in folders that enable me to find and download a desired image quickly, including from my phone. A single plastic bin, below, holds our few remaining paper photos and family mementos.

I handle my finances electronically, too, and often pay friends with Venmo and Zelle. I have paper dollars in my wallet but rarely touch them, although I often use cash abroad. My medical records are online, as are almost all of our personal records. 

Younger readers might hear all of this and respond: “Big deal, Oldster. This is how people live these days.” But it’s a huge change for people of my generation, who grew up and established habits before personal computers and the internet existed. Many of my peers still prefer paper to pixels.

Not me. I have little use for paper or snail mail. I’ve embraced the digital world — not only because it’s displacing paper options so rapidly, but because I prefer it. When I hear someone say, “I like curling up with a real book and turning the pages,” I respect their preference but still choose my Kindle, which is lighter, brighter and more comfortable. It also tracks my place in each book. I do prefer hardcovers for how they display photos and maps. As an author, I also recognize the threat this shift poses to writers and the publishing industry.

I’ve always welcomed new technology but it was my service in the Peace Corps in 2016-18 that forced me to shift completely online. When Champa and I were in Moldova, we did everything electronically, whether conducting business with our American bank, booking travel or chatting online with our family back home. We got some handouts from the Peace Corps and at our posts, but many of those were electronic, too.

After two years of living without paper, it felt normal. Ever since we returned home, it still does, and greener, too. I’m grateful to the Peace Corps for many reasons but didn’t anticipate this one.

Champa and I downsized substantially before we left for the Peace Corps, getting rid of everything except what we could fit into one upstairs storage room and the attic of our house, which we rented. We know we’ll need to downsize again whenever we finally sell our house and move to someplace smaller. Next time, though, we won’t need to get rid of so much paper. It’s already gone.