Again, I find myself longing for travel.

My adventurous moments, the ones I lived mixed with the ones I am living right now, come in a strange way of nostalgia that I experience in the present.

The lovely paradox of travel is that we can often feel more the experience of what happened when we return from a trip than when we are in there in the moment. This is what I come to tell you on today’s article: the past experience of a moment I am cherishing right now while writing.

Don’t miss my other travel series of Africa, Asia and Europe

Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina 🇧🇦

One: Hope

that Stari Most, a reconstructed version of the 16th-century Ottoman bridge, never has to be rebuilt again in the motives of war. The Old Bridge was destructed during the Croat-Bosniak War in 1993. Hope that tranquility, peace and prosperity fill the following centuries of the Balkans.

Two: Discover

and learn about new religions and their people. Open my mind to new cultures. Discover wonderful lifestyles that reveal the secrets of happiness from cultures far and wide. Be deeply moved by ordinary people and their habits.

Three: Jump

the river Neretva from Stari Most. Or see how another brave human does so with the gentle background noise and some exaggerated jubilation. Realise that practice is what makes jumping an enjoyable activity and not a perilous one.

Four: Satiate

my thirst to the exotic and unknown tea flavours of the East. Share my appreciation for it through an untranslatable language with a local and then feeling a bond with this unknown person.

Five: Bloom

and wilt. Wax and wane. Accept that human life and the built world have joyous peaks and unexpected lows. Happiness – and architecture – have many shades and states. The ability to cherish all periods of life is what frees ourselves.