Happy New Year everyone. 2026. People seemed to be hopeful for change in a positive direction for a hot minute.

But, we woke up to the incredible news that the US bombed Venezuela and then kidnapped the sitting President and took him by force to the US to stand trial. So much for the “FIFA peace president”. What a complete farce. I know the situation is complicated and that Venezuelans have been living under a dictatorship for years and many saw this as the only option for regime change, but the ends do not justify the means and there is no plan for “what comes after”. I just hope for the best but will be contacting my Congress critters to insist they stand up against these illegal actions.

I am writing from Valencia, Spain. We should be back in the Netherlands, but our early morning flight was cancelled and we’re “stuck” here until Monday. Luckily we were still in our rented apartment when Santi found out and he was able to extend our stay and get us on a new flight on Monday afternoon so overall, not bad how things turned out.

Seems like air travel is just getting worse and worse - we have had so many cancelled and delayed flights over the past year. It’s almost a miracle when a flight takes off as planned. Luckily, back in December, I flew to Barcelona with only minimal delays that were overcome during the flight itself. I took a super quick trip to Barcelona to talk about Internet Data Trusts.

December 9 – Day 395

Tuesday I flew to Barcelona arriving in the early evening. Everything had been arranged which I wasn’t expecting, but it was nice and made things much easier. A driver picked me up and took me to the hotel where I went to have a small dinner with a mocktail on the rooftop bar. The impressive city view included the Guadi Sagrada Familia Cathedral off in the distance.

December 10 – Day 396

The morning was spent catching up with a colleague I had met in Lisbon and then more people joined us for lunch. The afternoon workshop session was about creating an Internet Data Trust and what that would look like.

That night I led four virtual board meetings from my hotel room so missed out on the city tour and the dinner with the workshop group, but the meetings were all super productive and glad to have gotten them wrapped up.

December 11 – Day 397

I left the hotel at 4:00 am to catch a 6:00 flight back to Amsterdam for a meeting at 10:00. The flight was delayed, but I made it to the meeting with 10 mins to spare.

The sunrise over the clouds was super beautiful and the way the clouds changed shape from undulating waves to bubbles dramatically demonstrated the changing nature of nature itself.

Luckily the clouds didn’t stay around all day and the afternoon was a cold crisp day when I finally got back home to my open office.

December 12 – Day 398

Every year there is a beautiful experience at the nearby Kasteel de Haar of “Luminous Nights”. It’s a walking tour throughout the grounds, the buildings and paths are lit up to tell a fairytale story. The story changes every year and I have always wanted to go, but never remembered in time - it sells out quickly. This year, a group of us from IWCU gathered and we bought tickets in October to go together. I brought along Santi and David and we had a lovely evening out together exploring the sights and sounds of the experience.

December 13 – Day 399

We did a very “adult” thing and went to a kitchen store to look at the options for buying and installing a new kitchen in the new house when we take possession in April. I was honestly quite overwhelmed by all the different choices, but luckily I am partnered with a man who knows what he wants and we were able to chose different options and come up with a plan. We will take possession in April and leave our house in May, so there’s a month to knock out the old kitchen and install the new one. As long as everything goes as planned (hah!) it should be all done in two weeks. The kitchens are all very modular and standardized and the installers know what they’re doing.

The sunset was so pretty on the way home, I had Santi take this photo. We drove from the kitchen store to a friend’s house for a party and could only stay for a bit as we had another one that evening across town.

December 14 – Day 400

On Sunday afternoon, went to yet another friends’ house for a lovely afternoon end-of-year holiday season party and had such a good time, I forgot to take photos. There was Glühwein and gingerbread cookies galore and lots of friends enjoying each others’ company.

I have been seeing advertisements for “Alegria” by Cirque du Soleil here all over Valencia. They are coming in the spring. It reminded me of the beautiful soundtrack. Enjoy.