Well, Honolulu remains beautiful.  A couple of photos from where I sit composing this posting. There have been good trips and bad.  Since I retired a quarter century ago, the 50 or so I've taken have all been good to great.  However, I've been thinking about all my travels, and a few did not go right. Some particularly worried me.  For the next few Tuesday nostalgia days, I'll focus on the worst ones.  There was danger in Papua New Guinea, concern that I might not be able to leave China, an incident at Machu Picchu, Peru, the weirdness of Cairo, Egypt and scare in Delhi, India.  These experiences were sufficient so that I can't imagine my ever returning to those countries. The first I'll report on occurred in 2010.  This was a global journey, and here is how it started. Today, I begin my journey. I will visit Seoul, Hanoi and other parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, A...

  Our boarding of the Regent Seven Seas Voyager was delayed by two days, for the ship had some technical problems, but never really explained.   Barcelona  itself is a fine spot for culture and cuisine, known to be Beautiful, Artistic, Historical, Convenient and Fun.  The Sagrada Familia, the life-work of Antoni Gaudi, in particular, is a sight to remember.  Construction began in 1882, and might well actually be completed a century after his death in 2026.  That this church ever got this far is a miracle in itself, for no religious organization is paying for it, nor any governmental agency.  Ticket sales and private donations have kept it going. We showed up at the ship port site and were shunted off to a remote hotel for two days, which was actually not all that bad, for we were sent to a part of Spain we'll never see again, the lunches were great and the hotel, Eurostars, excellent.  One lunch was beef, and the other was fish. Finally, arra...

  Borrowed those above terms from  Laura Viarengo .  Barcelona: Is next to Madrid as the second largest city in Spain, with 1.6 million within the city limits and a metro area of 4.8 million. Founded as a Roman city around the time of Jesus Christ. Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castille were married in 1469.  It was not a love-match, but a highly choreographed political union that united Spain.  They commissioned  Christopher Columbus for his voyage to discover America . Of course,  Asians entering North American nearly 16,000 years ago  formed Indigenous Americans. Further, in 1405 Chinese Muslim eunuch Zheng He launched the first of seven voyags west from China across the Indian Ocean, and over the next 30 years commanded the world's largest fleet funded by the Ming Emperor.   He discovered America in 1421 .  His ships were gigantic compared to that of Columbus. Hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics. Barcelona is the UNESCO-U...