Setting sail into the year 2025, Dec 30-Jan 4, 2025.

The year 2025, along with the three years that follow, is shaping up to be a challenging time for our country. I feel overwhelmed and inundated with embarrassing and frightening news about our incoming President and his cabinet. It fills me with anxiety, but at the moment, I feel hopeless and powerless to change the course our country is taking.

When I lived in the Soviet Union, where government oppression and human rights violations were a way of life, the only way to endure was to shield your soul from the chaos. You had to ignore the government’s affairs and focus on simply living your life. I suppose I’ll have to adopt the same mindset here for the next four years.

From now on, I’ll focus on sharing stories about our travels and my book, Camel from Kyzylkum. These will be my only topics of conversation moving forward.

We welcomed the year 2025 on a Caribbean cruise with Royal Caribbean. With a guest capacity of just over 2,700, Enchantment of the Seas is one of the smaller ships in the Royal Caribbean® fleet, which is why it departs from the Tampa Port. The staff provided excellent service throughout the trip. However, the ship shows its age—it was originally ordered on August 3, 1994, built in 1997 by Kvaerner Masa Yards at the Helsinki New Shipyard in Finland, and refurbished in 2012.

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