On November 3 we left Miami for Southhampton.  Right behind us,  Hurricane Raphael , was heading straight for Cayman Islands, where we were yesterday.  What a difference a few days can make. On November 5 there was another hurricane, named Donald Trump, who, defying any logic and all odds, got re-elected president of the USA.  My sleep pattern began to change, for I worried about the future of democracy in the U.S.  I was so perplexed at how far off I was towards understanding our nation, that, save for my exposition on the future of the country  the next day, for the rest of the trip pretty much avoided politics in my postings.  Today, I still seem to have lost interest in our future, for all seems lost.  Reminds me of Ray Bradbury's  A Sound of Thunder , where a time traveler returns home to find everything changed.  He would have expected Kamala Harris to prevail over Donald Trump, but the opposite happened because he stepped on a but...

  Amsterdam: Is a city of canals with 90 islands and 1500 bridges. Coffeeshops  are big for tourists, but not as much anymore, as many other locations have legalized this weed. This is the term used for smoky rooms buying and smoking marijuana.   They also sell coffee.   Most are located in the Red Light District. They can sell a maximum of 5 grams of cannabis twice a day to the same person. Cannot sell cigarettes or alcohol. Smartshops sell psychoactive and related substances. Here you can buy magic truffles and cacti. I nteresting that those are legal, but magic mushrooms ( psilocybe cubensis ) aren't . They are rapidly being replaced by online retailers. Read my posting 2011  providing details, for nothing much as changed. Another one of 2014 . The Netherlands is called the land of windmills.  From the Viking Daily. Records indicate that  China was the first  to use windmills, to pump water in 200 BC. Some say they were first invented...

Our cruise on the Norwegian Encore from Seattle to Southampton, UK, is over.  Day 35, yesterday, might well have been the worst day, while Day 1 on land, mostly in Amsterdam, could well have been the best day of the trip.  I'll explain. To begin, I began to have some sleep problems during the final few days on the ship.  The final night was the worst, with only one hour of sleep.  This was partly because of the stress of having to awake at 5AM to be off the ship at 7AM.  Just the thought of then having to catch a bus to Heathrow Airport, then fly to Amsterdam was stressful.  Well, on the bus, and goodbye to the Norwegian Encore. After an hour and a quarter, Heathrow Airport.  Got there at 8:30.  Our flight was to leave at 2:15PM.  On the board were signs that indicated you could not check in to the flight until 2 hours before departure, which meant a wait of almost four hours.  But then, we learned that business class passengers can go t...