THE VIKING TIR: From Germany to Austria

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4% on Friday, and broke its all-time high, rising 189 to 44,911. The S&P 500 also got to a record high, increasing 0.6%.

Donald Trump is also on a roll. Amazon has a wide assortment.

I go to the Orient a lot, and the dollar to yen exchange rate the past year has been great. Up to 160 yen/dollar. Today, still a good 150 yen to the U.S. $.

I'm in Europe, and the $ to Euro rate is now close to parity.

Well, not quite today, for you need to pay $1.05 to the Euro.. But equality occurred in 2022 after a period of 20 years, and remains in this range. So both Europe and Japan are good places to visit these days to get value for your dollar if you live in the USA. Unfortunately, this good fortune does not work the other way around for those in Japan and Europe

Okay, the Viking Tir was repaired, I think, and we are on our way to Melk, Austria. A few photos. Last night we had a goodbye German supper.

Appetizers.

My dinner.

Desserts.

That black piece is a Sachertorte.

Evening ended with Schnapps, which refers to any kind of strong, dry spirit. Typically, they include fruit brandies, herbal liquers and so on. Served in a tiny glass, you consume it all in one quick slug, and yell anything from prost to whatever.

After dinner, we found out that the company decided to open up its bar because of the accident. Drinks that cost $18/half shot were now free. We were entertained by our Program Director Steve, who we think might well be the most valuable staff player here on the Viking Tir, but also on any cruise we've so far had. He was a former professional singer.

We did not buy a drinks package because wine and beer comes free with lunch and dinner. The alcoholic drinks however, are very expensive. Just a typical HALF jigger of scotch can cost you up to $17. Here are two price lists. These are half a jigger prices, and we were served full jiggers and doubles.

The staff was very generous.

At one point, we were accumulating drinks.

I finally settled on Glenmorangie, Highland Park and Macallan Whiskies, plus a Wachau Cognac. What you see below would have cost me at least $100. Triple the eventual cost, as this went on for a long time. All free because we at this point were still on a stuck ship, with the prospect of spending the rest of the cruise being taken by buses to hotels,

Walked 766 steps two days ago and 340 steps today.

Lunch today was black bean soup, salad and spaghetti putanesca.

There is a story to the above. Puttana in Italian means whore. Rumor has it that this sauce, Puttanesca, ws created by prostitutes as a quick meal in between tricks. I wrote about this 5 years ago.

Tomorrow, a tour of Melk Abbey and a hopeful arrival in Vienna, Austria. At this point, not a sure thing.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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