How does it come you trust me, you don’t even know me?

'How does it come you trust me, you don't even know me?'- A traveller's journey to Eastern Europe, a dreamer's account, a young citizen's thoughts.

It is a simple question I got asked on that hot summer's day in the mountains of Transylvania by my new Romanian friend Adrian: 'Ana, how does it come you trust me, you don't even know me. You only met me two days ago on this meeting, and now you will be stuck with me in a car for the next 12 hours driving through Romania?'
I owed the answer to my friend Adrian that day. I never managed to respond. And what should I actually have told him?

That yes, I don't know him, that I don't speak Romanian, that all I have is a flight ticket back home but only many weeks later, … and yes that I trust him because I think I should, I need to, if trusting doesn't start, right now between the young citizens of Europe than I wouldn't know where else it is supposed to start.

May-be I should have told him that a part of me was rebelling; rebelling against the attitudes I kept on experiencing in the 'old' Europe. Being on a short-trip in Vienna months before, I had curiously asked my Austrian friends if they had been to Bratislava. All of them denied. When I asked why, the answer was simple: No interest yet! I was shocked; shocked because I couldn't see why they travelled all over the world but hadn't even dared to take a 45 minutes train ride and discovered Slovakia. I wondered where this disinterest came from: history? Ignorance?

May-be I should have answered Adrian that I left for Eastern Europe because I was tired of Western Europe, tired of everything being planned, controlled, organised. Standards have been established; standards by which you are measured, set standards which you better keep up. Creativity is dying, dying under rules, passivity and wealth.
So yes, may-be I was egoistic when I started this journey, looking naively for adventure, trying to capture some of the spirit I have experienced from my Eastern European friends: Young people who do: they complain like everyone else but they act nevertheless. I feel like we, we talk but we forget the doing most of time, enjoying the security we might feel in complaining. Young people who phoned me up when they joined Schengen, happily singing and being full of hope. In my own country, people refer to Schengen almost exclusively when it comes to the Wine festival.

May-be I should have told him that deep in me there is this feeling telling me that we are all partners in crime now, since the enlargement. And that if you sit on a table, if you are supposed to make something as big, as complex and as intangible as the European Union work, the minimum effort you need to make is to know your partners.

But all of this might sound and be too geeky, too irrational. May-be all I should have told Adrian was ‘because I am curious, curious like a small kid to know what you guys are up to! And I feel like getting to know you, will help me to get to know myself! I don't want to be only geographically in Europe but my heart should embrace it, too!'

Days after this question was pronounced I find myself dressed up as medieval farmer's daughter selling medieval postcards in a small town in the forests of Romania. With me is Adrian, pretending to be a knight, his housemates and the violin Eva.

Most of the time we talk through Eva, being the only medium we all fully understand. I speak a mixture of Spanish and French and they just keep on telling me their stories in Romanian. I do my best, wanting to make them proud by selling these postcards, having my Romanian sentences learnt by heart so I can smile at the customers and attract them.
We sleep in old schools; we mingle with the other sellers and pose for photos with the tourists. I ask them why they produce postcards. The reasons are various, but one thing is clear: it doesn't make them rich, costs them a lot of time and trouble but they believe with all the heart in these postcards they produce. 'Ana, they are the most beautiful you can find around here! I promise you!'

We spent the nights sitting around the fire, singing, dancing, and laughing. I find myself writing in my diary about these days, not believing how I sell postcards in Romania wearing this hideous dress and how happy I am.
My Romanian friends can hardly believe how much I enjoy my stay with them, me, the girl from the richest European country loving the Romanian lifestyle of a seller. And I, I find it just wonderful how they live, how they do and how they fight for producing and selling their postcards.

But sometimes, sometimes I lose the fight against myself on this trip. I want to breathe in this unknown part of Europe to the fullest but I don't always manage. There are moments I am angry, angry because I am not offered the standards I know. Trying to buy a ticket in Poland and after having queued for over three hours, the shopkeeper just goes on a break, just like that, for over an hour. Waiting for trains which come later or never show up.

I find myself sitting in the wrong train, being shouted at by Hungarian train officers and being kicked out in a little town. An old woman dries my tears scribbling down the next trains and drawing me a map of Austria, Hungary and Slovakia so I would never ever get confused again.
At one of my last stations, I am in the Ukraine, at the border of Russia for a European training course with Ukrainian young people who explain me how much it would mean to them to join the European Union but I am barely allowed to laugh out loud in the streets or to sing or sit on the grass in the park.

I get told off constantly; my friends whispering in my ear I shouldn't talk so loud and dance around so freely. I feel like being only allowed to be half of myself. And I wonder who I am to judge, to cry and to feel so lost? Am I right to compare? Would it be better if we all had the same standards? Will we all have one day the same standards? If so, what do we lose? What do we win? And how does it come I feel in some way disrespected? Does my culture cause it? And if it is, how different are we? How similar are we? Or if it is just my habit – how spoilt am I?
I leave the Ukraine and I wonder future member or not? Who will decide? And by which standards? And will those standards be justifiable?

Often I find myself laughed at and being told 'You are so sweet!' I manage to stand in Bratislava on a balcony looking at the thousand other balconies around me in this part of the city full of sowjetic-style build flats and saying: 'This is amazing! I mean there is always someone to play with you if you are a kid, and always someone to talk to if you are old and every time you look out of the window you can see what someone next to you is doing. How entertaining!' The answer is short: 'Ana, that’s the whole

In a train from Kiev to Warsaw, sharing a compartment with a woman smuggling cigarettes and hiding them in all the corners of our cubicle, even opening the ceiling, I am shocked but telling all of my travelling partners from different East European countries how convinced I am that the moment the Polish police will enter they will confiscate the drugs. I don't doubt, not for a single second about my comment.

They all just say: 'You will see, Anita!' The Polish police enters, and I smile being sure they will come through the door with their dogs sniffing around. But no, they come; they smile at the lady, not at me and let her pay them, even not wanting to have a look at my passport. My friends laugh and I am confused. Doesn't Europe stand for a strong policy on drugs and anti-corruption?

Am I not 'home' now and can expect 'our' standards and principles?
I feel disappointed but wondering if their acts were actually good or bad for the lady, the mafia behind her, the European Union, us.

I can't decide. We arrive in Warsaw; I didn't sleep because what had happened in front of me was something which had only till then existed in the newspapers and on TV.
My friends shout: 'Welcome to reality!' and I wonder which reality we are talking about, because mine needs new definitions now.

I turn twenty-two on the border of Bulgaria and Turkey. It is so symbolic; it is almost ironic.
I celebrated first in Sofia, enjoying all the old Bulgarian traditions I got introduced to and being surprised by how strongly people believe in them. 'Don't put your handbag down, that means poverty' 'Every time before you start your car, you need to move forward, even if you want to go backwards. If not you are going to have an accident!'

It seems like half of my usual acts either means poverty, bad luck or illness.
I laugh and I am happy because I feel like I can start to learn again everything from beginning: 'A new year, a new 'European' me?'
I continue celebrating in Turkey, on a boat on the Bosporus. Having just crossed the border between European Union and Turkey, I now find myself on the water between Europe and Asia. Where are we all heading to?
Late at night, my Turkish friend Edge asks me: 'Ana, tell me, why you, citizens of the European Union treat us like second class citizens? Why do I always need a Visa and feel like an intruder or a thief? I am not worse than you; I am not better than you! I am not poorer than you and not richer than you in culture, traditions, happiness, money. I feel like someone who needs to beg to be able to come and visit my friends whenever!'

And so, on that last day of my trip, I feel ashamed of the European Union, of us.
Haven't we learned yet to stop discriminating because of differences and embrace them instead? Have I learned it?
Yes, I think so, a bit at least, thanks to us being 27 members now.

I turn still for a moment, suddenly having the answer to the question Adrian asked me weeks ago and confirming my intuition. Aloud I say: 'It is all about trust! It’s trust: our foundation; our future! Trust in us, European citizens, in our abilities, in the lessons learned from the past and the creativity and skills needed for the future. We are colourful, complicated, ambiguous and so different that to be complete we need to be one.

I need this need to be one! I need this to be one in order to grow and to keep on being challenged!
And Edge, I don't know why we don't trust you and your people. We shouldn't be blind in our trust but there is also no reason to draw artificial border where they are not needed and hinder common development!

Let's just continuing trusting each other, Edge! That's all I know after all these long weeks of travelling through Europe!'