The Johnslingtons

Our one full day in Prague was incredibly fun and impossibly beautiful, but boy was it long and tiring. As we made our way back to Carolyn’s that evening, Fiona kind of switched off, which we first assumed was just her being worn out after a long day running around in the sun. But by… Continue reading Croatia, We Hardly Knew Ya

Going to Prague made very little sense. We were in London, and had vague plans to get to the Alps at some point in June. The Czech Republic wasn’t really on the way to anywhere. Still, neither of us had ever been. And… we had a friend there. And not just any friend. “Hey, what… Continue reading Popping into Prague

Haggis bonbons and buttermilk fried chicken sandwich at The Smoke Stack in Edinburgh, Scotland. Weirdly, this was our only haggis in Scotland. Fortunately, it was delightful. Lamb chops and bacon from George Cockburn and Sons Butchers in Dingwall, Scotland. These guys know their stuff. Fish and chips at Smoke on the Water in Uig, Scotland.… Continue reading Scotland and England – The Best Stuff We Ate

After Scotland, Fiona traveled south to London, the capital of England. Both Scotland and England are part of the United Kingdom, or UK for short, and the UK is ruled (kind of) by a real queen! Who lives in London! Fiona was excited to visit Queen Elizabeth’s residence, Buckingham Palace, and see the guards who… Continue reading Where in the World is Fiona? London!

London holds a special place in my heart. I did my semester abroad there in college, and that experience, along with the three years I lived in Manhattan after I graduated, convinced me that living in a city was not only possible but wonderful—even if it took me a few years more to realize that… Continue reading London, Always Calling

There was a lot for Fiona to love about Scotland, where we spent about 10 days in late May/early June. For starters, the name Fiona has Scottish origins, and red hair is really common in Scotland, so she fit right in! We also discovered that the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn, and the… Continue reading Where in the World is Fiona? Scotland!

You heard of the the fairies when you were a kid, right? Not the ones from Disney tales who show up, sing bippety-boppity-boo, and grant wishes to princesses who then live happily ever after. I’m talking about the fairy folk, the dark and dangerous magical inhabitants who live just the other side of the world,… Continue reading Skye is Faerie

Driving a car into a ditch is almost always an apt metaphor for something, right? When I look back on that day (over a month ago as I write this – we’re falling behind), I don’t think of that car in the ditch as the toughest thing we had to pull ourselves out of. Not… Continue reading The World Catches Up To Us

Just one day after picking up my mom and two after we’d arrived there ourselves, we were back to the airport bright and early to retrieve Grandma’s lost suitcase and pick up our rental car (Snow Dash, or Bumblemobile, when we were pretending to be insect-themed superheroes) so we could hit the road for the… Continue reading Walking and Whisky and Ditches, Oh My! A Highs and Lows in the Highlands

After feeling a bit low throughout much of Portugal, we were fired up to start the next leg of our trip. Our 10-day Scottish tour (Edinburgh + Highlands) seemed to be just what we needed in lots of ways:   A change of pace: Spain and Portugal share a lot of similarities in food, culture,… Continue reading A Wee Edinburgh Excursion