Bonjour or Buenas Dias, perhaps Guedemorgen or Ciao!
Barbara Kastelin
Have you stumbled into Stansted or Luton airport at 4.30 in the morning, eyelids puffed and pillow-crinkles on your cheek, to find that you have to elbow yourself through the crowds?
You sit at the table you fought for, nursing your crack-of-dawn coffee, and look up at the departure panel, showing the 'time until gate' for the first ten destinations.
In Venice you offer the gondolier gingernuts and he gives you his boater and teaches you how to row.
In Amsterdam you show interest in the Dutch name of the flowers in reception, and she takes you to a flower auction.
In the French Alps you start a snowball fight for après-ski and three dozen people join in.
In Morocco you compliment the cook and he shows you the secrets of his clay oven.
In Paris you give 20 euros to the human statue near Sacré Coeur and, from his plinth, he winks and tosses you his 'stone' rose.
In the Algarve you get up early to photograph sardine-boats coming in and are invited to fish with them tomorrow.
In Tallinn you engage with the guide in the Orthodox Church and she shows you the crypt where her ancestor carved the iconostases.
In Turkey you caress a cat, and an old woman gets off her chair to make a gift to you of her blue-eye amulet.
Next the gate for Barcelona comes up. The sudden rumble of pull-along cases reminds you of the thunderstorm, and everyone helping the waiters to move inside where they played Flamenco to which people danced at 10 in the morning.
After that, your gate is up. You gather your things. A new destination beckons: a life experience which will add to the wealth of the other nine, because you now know how to live and give.
