“My kids helped out, when not goofing off in the garden. We cleaned each pepper thoroughly, and then pulled out the barbecue for the grilling. Given the size of our grill, this process…

“We were all Greek citizens, and proud to be: yet we were so different. I was Greek yet American-born and bred; the other three were born in Greece, and in Thrace, specifically. One…

“I arrived at the crossing, offered up our US passports; mine including a large, full-page Serbian residence permit. I was speaking Serbian, which is, of course, the same language as Croatian, and I…

“Fifty meters past the border barrier, the Hungarian border station looms, with Hungarian and EU flags fluttering, the station’s condition considerably better than the Serbian. I long ago gave up trying to use…