On a journey...

I got home yesterday after a quiet whirlwind of a week in Romania. Even as I sit here sipping my Earl Grey and wanting to write down what has so impacted my heart, it’s hard to find the words. It’s hard to make the words communicate something as opposed to become a muddled collection of moments. But I will try. Try to write down the fun with the heartbreaking with the interesting. And even if it promises to become quite a long anecdote, I hope that as I write, what I’ve seen can be translated into prayers of hope for this nation that has somehow snuck into my heart. The little girl at the train station. She couldn’t have been more than 6 years old and had some kind of paper attached to a string around her neck. At first glance she looked like a normal child traveling with her family. And yet on observing her, she didn’t seem to really belong to anyone. She caught me off guard. I was stood outside the McDonald’s at the train station, getting ready to travel a few hours out of ...

As I sit down to write this, I am at the little table in a rented flat in the centre of Bucharest, Romania. It’s quiet. Strangely quiet considering we’re in the centre of a huge city. My feet are propped up on a worn fake-leather puff thing, and as I check the time I realize that I have been in the country less than 24 hours... and yet my heart is overflowing with impressions and emotion for a nation I barely know. It’s getting late, but I know I am too awake to sleep and so have made myself a cup of Earl Grey (with milk) and have sat down to try to capture at least a bit of what this day has been. As always, I write mostly for myself and the occasional other who desires to enter into the telling of my story. Driving from the airport last night, and getting the first glimpse of the city and seeing majestic buildings lit up towards the night sky, filled me with expectation. A beautiful city filled with so much history. I came wondering. Wondering what this nation I knew from w...

One of the most interesting facts I learnt while visiting Rome last weekend was during our tour of the Colosseum and Forum Romanum. The Roman emperors would travel around doing their thing, making it very clear to the people that they were in charge and making sure they were submissive- both through putting on days of “games” in the Colosseum with free food so they wouldn’t think to rebel, as well as putting up ridiculously high statues of themselves. Needless to say these Emperors were quite proud and confident and probably quite full of themselves. So, when they would travel around they would have a “whisper” accompany them. A person whose role was to remind them that they were not gods and not immortal. Someone to keep them “grounded” so to speak. (Naturally these whispers life expectancy probably wasn’t very long). I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot, realising that today what most people need isn’t a “whisper” to keep them grounded but a “reverse-whisper” to lift th...

Almost getting conned. As we stepped through the sliding doors from baggage claim at the Fuimicino Airport , it was a bit like stepping into an Italian scene from the beginning of “Love Actually”. There were people everywhere; some looking attentively for the ones they were expecting; others embracing their loved ones. And of course, there is no reason to delay hugs, even if it does mean it’s a tad more tricky for other passengers to find a suitable route to walk around them and their luggage. After a non-eventful train ride, which included having our tickets stamped (read: have a small circular indentation made on them) before boarding the train in a little machine, we arrived at the Termini station . Some friendly men (I thought) “kindly” ushered us to the exit, and as we stepped off the platform one of them approached us and asked where we were headed. Thinking “that’s nice of him” we confirmed that we were indeed off to a hotel, adding that “no, we didn’t need a taxi as w...