L o v e
S t o r i e s
UNEXPECTED LOVE
Barcelona
Londoon
Running with Serendipity A chance meeting and the precious gift of choosing love over fear “Can I kiss you?” he asked, gazing at me with his blue eyes when we stopped to cross the street. It was the middle of the night and we had been walking through the quiet city center of Yerevan, Armenia’s ancient capital, for a few hours. I had an early morning flight and he had offered to keep me company instead of going to sleep. The air was still heavy after a day of 102 ºF heat, yet my adrenaline gave me goosebumps. T. and I had only met two days before. I had been attending my friend’s wedding, he was the groom’s best man. When the reception finished, we moved the party to the hotel bar. There, we connected over Backstreet Boys songs and golden retrievers, shared stories about my Romanian background and his Dutch roots, and completely ignored that my home in Bucharest and his life in London were more than a thousand miles apart. After we kissed goodbye and my taxi drove off, T. texted to ask me out in two weeks, when I would be in London for business. A
by ALEXANDRA BADITA
few dates in the British capital turned into a holiday week in Barcelona, then flying several times between London and Bucharest. Every step of the way, I was choosing love instead of letting “what if ” creep in. Even when he confessed his reluctance to a long-distance relationship while we were sipping coffee in the noisy Mercado de la Boqueria, I chose to put the fear of the inevitable heartbreak aside. I excused myself to the bathroom, and told myself in the mirror, “Alex, you will be okay, no matter what.” In that moment, I chose to love myself enough to see the gift of the present moment, enjoying our little Spanish escape with a lot of tapas, Sangria, and romance. Five months and 11 flights later, it all ended abruptly over the phone. But I was right, I was okay eventually. And choosing to live life, to capture those memories, was my greatest gift and lesson. After all, the only risks worth taking are for love—love for yourself, for life, and sometimes for a mysterious ginger man you meet at a wedding in a foreign country.
“A few dates in the British capital turned into a holiday week in Barcelona, then flying several times between London and Bucharest.“
Where will you fall unexpectedly in love? Only your trusted travel advisor knows...
ENSEMBLE VAC ATIONS I WINTER /SPRING 2022
31
