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I searched for a relatively quiet spot in the cavernous expanse of the international terminal. Every few moments a new announcement would blast over the speakers making it nearly impossible for me to hear the less-than-thunderous recording on my phone. “Philippine Airways wants to make your flight as pleasurable as possible. Please hang on the line for the next available agent. Your time to wait is……two hours………and fifty……two minutes.” That’s what I think I heard. Not only was the voice murky but the content was so hard to believe that I think my mind refused to hear the content. But I was desperate to speak to someone , a real, live person. That was my only chance. My predicament was so improbable, so motley that I wasn’t sure I could explain it properly, when and if I could reach someone. There was no way I was going to the Philippines (after transferring in Tokyo) this day, but once the airline understood how I had been victimized they surely would extend themselves to make things ...

  Blog 06-26-22 Sunday There aren’t many ‘man defeats nature’ memes around these days. Mostly nature seems to be crushing human ambitions and dreams. If you go to Holland, however, they have built a tourist site to refute the pessimists. It’s called Kinderdijk (the dyke of the children) in the land ‘reclaimed’ from the sea, and called, of course, Zeeland. It’s a delta of three rivers that once produced a vast marsh of peat bogs and human-less territory. It took the dutch over 500 years (1200 - 1740) to build a system that drained most of the land, spilling the excess water back into the more narrow environs of the rivers. Further west the North Sea was walled out, preventing the drainage work from being undone. The dry land was then converted to agriculture. Nature vanquished. The main mechanism, built in the 18th century, was a series of windmills that pump the lowland water up into higher drainage canals that then spill into the rivers. They are still there, the icons of dutch cu...

  Blog 06-21-22 Monday Amsterdam Why do I live in Oakland?..........when the world is filled with exciting places to reside? I was thinking this while reading my book on a park bench in Amsterdam today. I have the resources to move.  Rent in Amsterdam would be around $1,500/month. Overall expenses would be comparable to California.  I have no spouse or close friends in Oakland, no one who would be terribly upset if I left. Oakland is a sick city full of crime. The streets are full of obnoxious cars. Places like Amsterdam are congenial in ways that US cities cannot conceive. English is almost a co-equal language with Dutch here. People can get jobs without speaking the native language. Health care would be good, I suspect.  But….. I’d be deserting my grandson in Los Angeles (I could still visit but not as often, probably not often enough to be a grandfather). Amsterdam is at 52 degrees north latitude, the same as southern Alaska. My only experience of the place has be...

  Blog 06-19-22 Sunday Amsterdam I was resolved to get eight hours of sleep last night after several days of insufficient snoozing. My six-bed hostel room was empty except for me when I retired a bit after midnight.  At about 2am the door opened, the overhead light came on, and I heard what sounded like two or three guys came in speaking a guttural language that I didn’t recognize, Serbian? Ukrainian? They fussed about for a few minutes then, blissfully, extinguished the light and went to bed. The disturbance to my rest was minimal. Fifteen minutes later the snoring began. One of the guys sawed wood loudly and forcefully. It bothered me a bit but I remembered that I’d slept under the catapult of the USS John F Kennedy (CVA 67) for nearly a year. I knew how to handle noise that would disrupt the repose of lesser beings.  The problem was that his companion was less forgiving. “Wake up, you’re snoring!” That’s what I translated from the sounds emanating from the guy’s distre...

  Blog 06-18-22 Saturday I can’t explain it but on this, my fourth day abroad, I have yet to have a good night’s sleep. My second night I didn’t sleep at all, the longest night of tossing and turning I can remember. The next two nights I’ve managed about four hours each evening. The end result is that I’ve been groggy and dispirited since I landed at my hostel. Today, finally, I had some relief. Not sleep, but my day was active for the first time.  I registered for a ‘free’ tour of Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter and the history that goes with it. The guide was an American expat, married under Holland’s gay marriage statutes. One of the first things he told us was welcome solace. I had not been able to get a ticket to Anne Frank’s home — you must register about ten days in advance to procure one of those rare ducats. Our guide assured us that ‘you aren’t missing what you think you are missing’. The actual home was demolished long ago and replaced with a sleek, modern museum. The ex...

  Blog 06-15-22 Wednesday Amsterdam Cities that make me feel like, “I’d be happy to move to this place some day”: Hong Kong Buenos Aires Tel Aviv London Redondo Beach Belfast And now Amsterdam. I came here with a positive bias thanks to watching a vlog called “Not Just Bikes”. (Check it out some day. Here is my favorite post. It says much about American life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_0DgnJ1uQ )  Alas NJB has also made me dissatisfied with my home city; I drive around lamenting what might be but can’t be.  I knew it was a very livable place, but experiencing the place for even a few hours confirms my leanings. Thousands of places to eat and drink just within a few blocks of my hostel. Safe streets; pedestrians as King and Queen; a place designed for people. If you wish to know where I am, just search in Google for “Sarphati Park” on Google.  My first act last night after leaving my hostel was to buy a beer at a local pub. People exuded friendliness. The beer...

 Sunday, June 12, Oakland. Tomorrow I head off for Amsterdam via a lengthy, multi-stop airline journey.