kochleffel

Sinagoga del Transito & Museo Sefardi Sinagoga de Santa Maria la Blanca (not a typographical error)

When I got back from Toledo, around 6:00, the water in the hotel had been repaired. Navigating Toledo on foot was difficult, partly because about half population of Spain seemed to have chosen today to visit, apparently just to mill around. Maybe some pix later. They’re on my phone, which needs charging. The trains between Madrid and Toledo aren’t classed as high-speed, but they reach 250 km/hr over part of the route. I ought to have have mentioned yesterday that I have two black cats. I didn’t think that they qualified as international cats but National Cat Day will be OK. When I get home I’ll be teaching a class on the book of Jeremiah, which overlaps the exile in Babylonia. When they returned, Ezra and Nehemiah assembled everyone and had the entire Torah read aloud.

Aboard the train for departure to Toledo. My assigned seat was in a group of four across a table, which I didn't want, but already taken by a family.

Oy oy oy oy oy. I was awake until 3:00 a.m. and this morning the hotel has no water.

Faux pas: ordering lunch at 12:30 pm in restaurant that is still serving breakfast. Weather: 57 F, partly sunny.

At my hotel in Madrid. Room is not ready but there are coffee and Wi-Fi. I was pleased to manage buying a train ticket at a machine that was only in Spanish. It reminded me of Alice B. Toklas’s story about their French maid during a visit to Mallorca, who said that Spanish was just like French, but with bad spelling, not that my French is any better, but I do have a certificate saying that I can read French (in 1974).

At Frederick Douglass International. Although my trip is international, the first flight is only to Philadelphia. In some pain from yard work and lack of sleep, applying ibuprofen and diet cola internally.

Twenty minutes on hold just to get waitlisted.

The deciding factor is that this cruise is to celebrate my retirement. Come to think of it, on other cruise lines I have bid that much for an upgrade, only then there's no choice of location. I already had the deck plan open when I noticed that it's too late to call tonight. Oh, and I have a gift certificate to cover it.

HAL's latest offer is $99 (i.e., $198) to upgrade from obstructed OV to verandah. Should I? It's the amount they wanted last week to upgrade just to unobstructed, which I would have considered a downgrade because of the location on the Oosterdam.

There is a Hindu temple a few blocks away but I don't know what they're doing to celebrate. My family visited New York for the World's Fair in 1965 and we also toured the UN complex. In the General Assembly hall, someone asked the guide which desk Khruschev had pounded his shoe on (in 1960). She said she didn't know, because the seating changes every year. Pass on the soup, partly because of the macaroni. I would have liked the drink an hour ago, but the service in this establishment is terrible, just terrible. (Also, the food is bad and the portions are so small.) For a red blend, maybe we'll stick with Zugibe Vineyards and have the 2020 4 Freds Red, named after the four generations of Freds in the family. I haven't been to Guadeloupe and I don't think it's in any of my current bookings. I slept better but not well and woke up cold. It's time to put the duvet in its cover. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, you'll know that I'm still struggling with it.

Some years ago I visited Charleston, SC, in March. People kept apologizing for the terrible weather. It was sunny and 75°.

Also 38° here. We haven't had a frost yet; the first is likely to be on November 1. I'll be in Barcelona, waiting to board.

I knew about mole as a term in chemistry, but I was ready to discuss how to get the tunneling animals out of your lawn. I think that the best talk-show hosts were decades ago: Mike Douglas, Virginia Graham, both on in the daytime, and Dick Cavett at night. The soup would be OK. No on the pseudotini. For a Pinot Noir, how about Zugibe Vineyards 2020. I haven't been to New Zealand. Are you sure that this wasn't the former governor of Ohio? I woke up at 4:30 a.m. today, and while I did get some rest later, I didn't nap, and didn't have the energy to do some things that needed doing. However, I did turn in a class assignment that isn't due for another two weeks - it was ready and I don't know whether I'll have internet access then. I also did two loads of laundry, one of things that I intend to pack and one of things that were merely dirty, paired the new AirTag (but had a really hard time finding the first one, although I could hear its beeping), and set the combinations for four small padlocks. I think I need one more, and I also think I have it, but I don't know where it is and it doesn't beep. It is confusing and annoying to think about packing for what will amount to four different climates: here in NYS; Madrid, where it will likely be on the cool side; the ports, which will probably be warm to very warm; and the Atlantic, where anything is possible. Plus a few hours in Fort Lauderdale, then back here, where by that time it could be definitely cold. I've never really wanted a motorhome, except when I was reading Travels With Charley - and that was a pickup camper, not what motorhome usually means now. Once in a while I still think that it sounds good. Last week I was in a Zoom meeting with someone who was moving from Pennsylvania to, I think, Georgia in a small motorhome. I don't know whether he owned it, or had rented it just for the move.

If I had more to post about a previous day's topic, I would just copy and paste the part to which I was replying into my reply in the new thread.

I agree.

Oy oy oy. My course has a weekly writing assignment. It's supposed to be 500 words. This week I wrote 1553. And I don't even have to do this one.

Especially terminal D, used by Delta, but I'm booked to fly from there anyway, because it's the airline on which I get a free checked bag. It does make me more interested in cruises from Port Canaveral, because I can fly from here nonstop to Sanford. That alone makes SFB worth considering even though it's not anywhere near the port, plus it's not FLL.

The Staples and Target run took much longer than I thought it would, mostly because I was replenishing supplies that I buy infrequently and usually not at Target, and they were hard to find. Thinking about all the tech stuff I'm taking to Spain makes my head hurt: phone, its charger and cable, and an extra cable iPad, its charger and cable, and an extra cable Bluetooth keyboard and its charging cable Bluetooth earbuds and their charging case and cable corded earbuds just in case power bank, maybe not needed at all but potentially critical in a 3-hour online class during a layover at PHL, and its cable DSLR and its charger (not compatible with any of the others), extra battery, extra SD cards, wide-angle and telephoto lenses (maybe omit the telephoto) some number of type C plug adapters two AirTags.

I've heard that Walla Walla had influence in the Washington legislature at a critical time and was offered a choice between getting the state prison or the state land-grant university. They are supposed to have chosen the prison because it seemed more likely to survive. Washington State University was established in Pullman and still exists (so does the prison). My own guess is that Walla Walla would be where they fish for walleye walleyes.

A long time ago, the legislature in my home state was in the process of designating a state fossil: the trilobite. My dad said that he thought that the then-governor was already the state fossil.

The special days are OK but too many people seem to think that Nut Day is a justification for their behavior. Chicken Marsala would be fine with me, and I'll be ready at 6:30 p.m. I have no idea what I'll have for dinner if it doesn't magically show up. I might like the drink but I dislike it when distillers create cocktails just to promote their own sales. For the wine, I'll suggest Glenora 2021 from the first winery on Seneca Lake. I was in Stockholm before and after a Baltic Sea cruise in 2019. No one is asking, but I recommend the Victory Hotel in Gamla Stan. My room from the first stay (had a larger room for the second): My favorite Stockholm street signs, and the Nobel Prize Museum: Program from a chamber concert in the opera house (had to be changed slightly because the humidity kept one of the instruments from staying in tune): Vasa Museum Stockholm Jewish Museum Letters asking the Swedish government to admit Jewish refugees. All were refused, but in 1943 Sweden sheltered almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark. I slept fretfully last night and it is hard to get going today.

Pass on all the special days. The soup would be OK if made with non-dairy ingredients. Probably no on the cocktail. This is the second Pinot Gris in a short time and this time I'll suggest the 2021 from Buttonwood Grove Winery on the west side of Cayuga Lake. I don't think that the name of the winery has anything to do with counting buttons. I haven't been to Surabaya. Today I'm trying to finish the week's reading for the eco-chaplaincy class and get ahead on the written work. There are almost weekly writing assignments but grading is based only six of them. I've already done five, and a bibliography that is due on November 12 is ready. This is so that I won't have to submit any written work while I'm away--I will have the technical capacity to do it, but maybe not the mental capacity, given that I have the HIA package. Also some pre-packing: not actually packing anything, but gathering things and getting them ready, and checking whether any clothing needs to be laundered. I see myself packing heavier than I want to, but there is good reason for everything, even if taking three hats (different kinds) seems excessive.

Indiana has, however, both a Hindustan and a Hindostan, often called ’Dustan and ’Dostan. I don't think that there is a Rostock in Delaware.

And Denmark's real name is Danmark, no e.