Hello everyone ! I hope that you are doing well !

Yesterday I arrived in Brasov.

I had never heard about Brasov before. Brasov is in Rumania, and now I can tell that it is a charming historic town, close to the forest, a few hours away from Bucharest.

I had planned to join my friend Diane in Rumania for a immersion in the third-places ecosystem.

Diane is a very energetic young woman passionate about self-realization through freedom of expression – I will publish an interview of her soon !

Third-places are places where people work in a different way.

It’s not home-office. It’s not the office. Typical third-places are co-working spaces, fablabs or makers spaces. These kind of places gather diverse people from a wide range of fields working on entrepreneurial projects, sometimes in a « hacker » way, sometimes sharing working equipment. These places become hubs for innovation, both concerning content/ideas and the way of working/processes.

That was the plan.

Diane told me 2 days ago that, actually, after a week hiking in the mountain, her friend Marc and her had decided to stay in Brasov and offered me to join them there.

And here I am !

I had not really organized my arrival and when the bus arrived in the center of Brasov I started to ask for directions.

A Rumanian very old grandmother firmly decided to help me.

I could not communicate with her easily as she did not speak English or French. She looked at the address of the youth hostel I was looking for and waved at me to follow her. She seemed really lost so at the beginning and I was really wondering if I could trust her !

She brought me to the bus station. There, I had to buy a metro ticket and … I realized that there was no Euro currency in Rumania ! She bought the ticket for me. I was feeling really stupid and ashamed. She took the bus with me, and brought me at the entrance of The Rolling Stone Hostel !

There, we had an interpret to communicate. I asked for her name : Gabriela.

Thank you, Gabriela.

I thought that such precious moments of humanity only happen when you are on your own, without usual landmarks. Then you become vulnerable and you need others. And the magic happens.