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A few days in London during the height of the impeachment hearings might be a good respite I somewhat foolishly thought. With the grinding Brexit debate, there is now a furious and contentious sprint to a snap general election on December 12 to largely determine whether the U.K. finally departs the European Union (EU), all of this after a 2016 referendum compelling it to do so.

The first morning after arriving in China last week was the hardest. As I sipped an unusually strong blend of Chinese tea, reading the China Daily, I was pleased to see one of the lead articles describing in glorious detail the health benefits of tea, which evidently was first consumed in 2737 BC in China. Apparently, it has now been shown in a 25-year longitudinal study that tea drinkers had “better organized brain regions” which certainly sounded useful.

Having just returned from a week in Greece, I may well have taken a few years off my life. If you have spent time on some of the Greek islands, you certainly know what I mean. And what a time to have been there, on the heels of a dramatic transition in political power (July 2019) and a resurgent economic environment, there was a sense of optimism that one would not have expected for a country emerging from a crushing economic crisis over the past dozen years.

July 2019 was determined to be the hottest month in recorded history according to scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The temperature was 1.71 degrees above average July temperatures over the entire twentieth century. In fact, nine of the ten hottest Julys occurred since 2005.

It is impossible to not appreciate the fierce sense of independence when traveling in the Basque Country. While I was fortunate to leave right before the brutal heat of the past month, it is clear that the somewhat tortured regional history of the last half century still influences much of the current narrative, and arguably this political history has influenced the healthcare framework now managing the 2.2 million residents of this beautiful but complicated region.