Some Things I Learned on Vacation

So…what have we learned after 17 days from Nice to Amsterdam?

        Most recently we learned that much of Europe cannot stand any prolonged high temperatures, since A/C isn’t nearly as common as in the United States. We have a friend who lives at 3,000 ft elevation in Switzerland. Temperatures soared above 100. In France, people have died. Not specifically ascribing all this to global warming, but it is troubling.

        While in Amsterdam, just as the heat wave started, we went to a site with several working windmills. Along the way there were sheep who would normally be grazing in a small field along the path. They were trembling and panting in the heat. Again, because this is so strange, there was no fresh water available and the small canal running through the field was green. I would be willing to bet that several have since died.

        Our first boat had a passenger list with many Aussies, New Zealanders, Canadians, and some Americans, but Americans were in the minority. I learned than the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has very few friends in the rest of the world. This includes China, and Taiwan as well. We had numerous common interests and wonderful conversations with many people from essentially all the nationalities on board. It was a sort of odd feeling, sensing that they were unsure of our political leanings, and they seemed relieved to find that our nausea with the current administration mirrored their own, as caution turned to sympathy.

        I reaffirmed something I already was fairly sure of, that being that the fact that simply because someone has held a fairly high military rank carries no guarantee of reasoning ability. Neither of us, nor most people in fact, would even think to broach a politically sensitive subject at dinner, especially with people one has just met. We had, by day three, met and frequently dined with several couples, Canadian, Taiwanese living in the Philippines and New Zealanders.  One evening at a table for eight, another couple we had met and opted not to be any closer to dined with us. He – a retired Army colonel, she a proudly proclaimed 30-year DOD employee with “seventeen broken bones in my back.”  You can see this coming, huh?

        Sometime and for no reason I can recall, the conversation turned to real estate prices in various areas.  Think it was the Canadian man who mentioned the housing bubble collapse as having less impact in Canada than in the US. Out of the blue, "the Colonel" said something like, “Well it was Obama telling poor people they should be able to buy houses they couldn’t afford.”

       You’d have been proud of me because I didn’t stand up and point out to the moron that the housing bubble collapse, beginning in late 2006 and coming to fruition in early 2008 happened before Barack Obama was even inaugurated, or that it was Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm, called by some economists “the father of the collapse”  who pushed two pieces of legislation very much responsible for the free for all that ensued. I didn’t tell him that the both the legislation to allow commercial banks to merge with invest banks, coupled with the legalization of adjustable rate mortgages were Phil Gramm initiatives aimed at undermining the post Great Depression restrictions on bank shenanigans imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act. While these things coursed through my mind, I think I settled for “It’s not that simple.” Not content to let it go, the wife proceeded to blame Obama for the Clinton era legislation of ten years earlier, regarding forcing banks to stop “red-lining” (simply refusing to provide mortgage loans based on color and neighborhood vice ability to pay). Our Canadian and New Zealand friends were non-plussed. From that night on, Katerina, the Slovak wife of the New Zealand anesthesiologist, made sure we had a table for six and filled it up.      

        I mention this because it stands in such stark contrast to the river cruise of several years ago during which strangers would broach the subject of their admiration for Barack Obama. French, Brits, Aussies, no matter. All admired the man.

        I also reinforced my opinion that Australians and New Zealanders really know how to vacation! I could walk into the lounge and quietly say Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, and immediately hear Oy, Oy, Oy in return. It’s a silly thing, but it’s fun. The couple from the Philippines, Nancy (Han Chinese) and Lawrence (Taiwanese) were charming and just as disgusted with Der Trumpf. Successful co-owners of a financial services company, they were just as sickened as we are by the lack of civility in the man. If dumping a passenger overboard weren’t a crime…….

        I also learned that France is gorgeous but has no corner on the ability to produce good wines. We went to four separate tastings in Châteauneuf du pape, Beaujolais, Burgundy, and Alsace. Of the 13 wines we were offered, one at more than 35 Euros/bottle (about $40 US), none were so good that I couldn’t do better at my local wine vendor. That means better wine at a better price. We sort of knew this several decades ago when American wines began winning international gold medals, but I have seen first-hand now. Again, the dirty little secret is that almost all French vines were replanted after phylloxera all but wiped out grapes in France. What were they replanted on? American rootstock. Nearly all French wine, including expensive French wine, comes from vines grafted onto American roots.”  

I learned a lot more but that’s enough for now.