The clouds out to the left of me form a lumpy white blanket which almost looks like the surface of the moon. You can almost see the tracks of a moon rover. The layer spreads out infinitely and I can see no breaks in it as far as the eye can see. I would assume that we are traveling southward and so the sun shines brightly to the east on my left. I can't help thinking that the clouds here are no different than the ones in America and so the excitement that should come with traveling to Europe still hasn't hit me.

The flight from Portland to St. Paul was completely uneventful. I enjoyed the connection from St. Paul to Amsterdam quite a bit. The service was good, the food was also, and there was an extremely attractive stewardess on the flight who was visually stimulating. She had dark skin and bright eyes that constrasted sharply with her complexion. I slept most of the time, but whenever I was awake I stared at her. She didn't return my glances except for once and maybe that was accidental. While I slept I dreamt of Erika. Europe so far has filled my head with thoughts of beautiful women so that has been less than difficult.

We just finished eating breakfast. KLM has, in my opinion, the best meals outside of first class of any airline that I have flown. Breakfast was an egg and potato omelete called a 'fritta' which was very good accompanied by a warm roll and applejuice and tea. For dessert we ate something called a 'sultana' which was a cookie with apple inside of it.

The cloud cover has now burnt off considerably and you can see the mountains below us. Quite a sight because in the morning the deep shadows in the crags are made even deeper by the bright sun at an extreme angle. As we progress some of the clouds still linger deep inside the peaks of the mountains for a fantastic effect.

As I write this I wonder if anything I'm writing will be of value to me in the future. Traveling is not so much a novel experience for me as it is an extension of my current way of life so will these experiences really alter my horizons and is a record of what I anticipate as an exercise in hedonism really necessary? Should I even care?