The tour was amazing. Two weeks seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. I can’t believe we’re already into our fourth week of the trip. After the initial excitement in Stockholm, then the whirlwind tour, then a quick stop in Athens, we finally have some time to unwind, slow down and relax. It amazes me how sometimes in life, perhaps some of the most important times, moments roll into other moments and things just seem to happen. A period of time becomes yesterday, last week, last year. The recent tour, our honeymoon, and our wedding day come to mind.
Months ago when we started thinking about our trip, a tour of Central Europe was high on the list. We wanted to see and experience places affected by WWII. Particularly Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow… Auschwitz. Walking the same streets that hundreds of thousands walked to their inevitable fates, seeing the precise locations where so much death and destruction occurred, walking into the gas chamber in Auschwitz... One thing I’ll never forget is seeing the nail marks on the concrete walls inside the gas chamber. The idea was that we'd learn and experience something profound.
Now that it’s over, I don’t know. It all seems a bit blurry. The tour was go go go… Sleep, 6am wakeup, 7am luggage and breakfast, 8am bus and tour, 11am “comfort stop,” 1pm lunch, 3pm comfort stop, 5pm check-in, 7pm dinner, repeat and repeat... Getting enough sleep was always a struggle.
Every place we visited had such immense history and aesthetic physical beauty, it was impossible to properly comprehend everything given the pace of the tour. There was never enough time to think, reflect or mourn… I barely had enough mental capacity to journal, take pictures, and pic-stitch.
I’m not sure yet if I had any profound learning experience. Maybe the whole thing will just take some time to digest and I’ll realize something later.
What I do know is that we got a special glimpse of how resilient people can be, and when entire cities and communities work together to rebuild, how incredibly beautiful and inspirational the results can be. Alexandra and I were both struck by how cool, lively and vibrant every war-torn city that we visited is today. We’ll try to recap some of our favorite experiences and, of course, food!
In real-time news... it's our last morning in Santorini, and we're off to Mykonos this afternoon! Alexandra has a cold.
-Michael