I was fresh and rested when I got back to the country a few days ago. I’ve been traveling for a month across countries I like, and love. I have been taking trains, buses, and other public transport because I wanted to feel the pulse of the countries I was traveling in. And meet friends. It was some sort of vacation from Trumpland, by which I mean the obsession the United States has with its accidental president. Coming back to this country felt good, but having spent a month without Trump was better.

Europe spends very little time following the American president. The Europeans are concerned about their own matters, and more in a philosophical way. They’re older, so they think they’ve figured out Trump, dealt with his kind before, and they lost interest in following him. When they mention the 45th president’s name, their mouth twists into a mocking grin. Madness is the word they use most often, without making an effort to go into deeper analysis of the causes of the irresponsible behavior of President Donald Trump.

I tried to stay away from discussions about the president. First of all, because of the bad internet connections when I traveled (almost never watched tv) I was spared of the annoying reporting on the microcosms of the man who sits in the White House. As for my answers to questions on the American president–by my readers and friends–I followed a stereotyped formula of repeating a Slovenian joke: Slovenia has a great future because, after the divorce of Donald and Melania, my country will inherit half of the United States. To the Slovenians and others, I was saying that Slovenia and the EU managed to plant a secret agent in the White House, who ignites Trump to go after Europe and divide it. As we know, the latter had some really remarkable results in the greater integrity and unity of Europe. So the EU should pay Melania well. If not Trump himself.

So all this nonsensical rest was great until I got back to the U.S. Watching some news, I could not get a sense of what was going on, or better, I can no longer share the passion of following the presidential nonsense or maintain my curiosity in figuring out how America will liberate itself from this burden drowning the whole country.

Among Trump’s highlights upon my return, I think that his dealing with North Korea has been spectacular, but thanking Putin for expulsion of 755 American diplomats from Russia was beyond belief. Whoever might think that Trump was trying to be sarcastic on that one is woefully wrong.

There was, however, the third little thing that made me shiver, just by making me realize how many values have been lost with Trump only six months in command of the country. When I read that CNN fired their conservative commentator Jeffrey Lord, already a controversial presence, because he tweeted “Sieg Heil” I realized that there is a man sitting in the Oval Office saying and tweeting much more horrible things, and he is running the country. Has this country lost all sense of proportion? Have we really bore into the dark, open sea where nothing, not even the smallest thing in this world, can be guaranteed and respected?