Christmas morning, December 25, 2024 The whole entrance was wrong. Nine months pregnant and riding on a donkey for days, ask any woman who has given birth what that experience must have been like. No admission into a private room in a hospital but only the pathetic rejection by an innkeeper who only slightly opens… Read more

Sea day. December 18, 2024 As we come to the end of the first year of this 3-year Hope for Today journey I asked myself what the common denominator was that I could find in the countries and cities we have visited. Unfortunately, the answer came too quickly: WAR. In most countries the wages of… Read more

December 15, 2024 I’m so sorry. My brother, Brian, informed me that he has been trying to send comments to my blog and has been receiving an “undeliverable” message. As soon as I get home, I will contact the website administrator and have that corrected. I thought you all had been tired of hearing from… Read more

December, 13, 2024 After refueling in Gibraltar, we took a dip back into Northern Africa to Tangier, Morocco before we set sail for Cadiz, Spain our last port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean back to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. On the map you can see the northwest Africa promontory where the Atlantic meets the… Read more

December 10, 2024 The (blank) of Gibraltar. Of course, everyone knows the answer. The Rock of Gibraltar. But what exactly is The Rock of Gibraltar? Gibraltar is one of the last slices of a British Empire that once ruled one quarter of the planet. There is an airport, but car traffic has to stop for… Read more

December 8, 2024 There are four times as many four-legged inhabitants of Sardinia, Italy as there are two-legged inhabitants. Not the ones that bark, but the ones who “baa”. Sheep dominate the fertile mountain areas of Sardinia shown on the map above (Sardinia is the 4th least populated region in Italy) and these sheep’s milk… Read more

December 7, 2024 In 1982, Tunisia became the center of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a militant and political organization based in the capital Tunis. Tunisia’s constitution declares Islam as the official state religion—and the absolute majority of its population, or around 98%, report to be Muslims. Tunisia has a long history of corruption. The First Lady is described as an “unabashed shopaholic”… Read more

December 6, 2024 After a year of travel, it was bound to happen. It was inevitable. I got sick. Someone suggested that some travelers had eaten the nice-looking cucumbers and tomatoes that hadn’t been washed in Egypt and brought the bug back to the ship. Whatever it was I caught it! With a temperature of… Read more

December 4, 2024 After Cairo I decided to do a little more research on the government of Egypt. The news is not good. The current government, a semi-presidential republic is led by Abdel Fattah el-sisi since he was elected in 2014. He is responsible for perpetuating the country’s poor human rights record. In 2024, as part of its Freedom in… Read more

December 2, 2024 The reason that most tourists come to Egypt is because it is the home of the Pyramids. Let’s be honest, most of us know little more about Egypt than that. Don’t worry I am going to cover the Pyramids (quickly) You must look beyond the Pyramids to see the real Egypt, and… Read more