Oh man that sucks. How many ducksworth do you have on that lake?

I'm fascinated by the space between borders. Saw a documentary about Mehran Karimi Nasseri a refugee who was stuck at Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years - not this one but I can't find the original I saw. I have so much empathy for him because... funny story.

I got held up with my wife at Bucharest airport for 3 days.

We got diverted due to bad weather and when we landed they wouldn't let her board the onward leg since she'd lost her travel permit in transit. She couldn't get a stamped visa - for reasons - so it was stapled onto her passport. I actually think it was stolen at Delhi where we'd flown from.

Landed in the small hours of Friday morning. Spent most of the day held and questioned by the authorities who eventually let us into the transit area. Had lots of conversations with security who eventually gave her passport back and had to hole up there over the weekend until the British consulate opened up... except it was a national holiday on Monday so we had to wait until Tuesday.

Massive coincidence that we bumped into someone we'd met in India during our stay in "Hotel Transit" becuase their flight had also been diverted, They gave us contact details of a friend of theirs who lived in Bucharest We managed to gain entry to Romania to pick up emergency travel papers, but they sent us through a unmanned channel with no-one checking passports or anything so we'd entered illegally. The consulate said it would take 3 days for security checks etc so we looked up the address we were given and had an incredible unexpected stay in Bucharest getting shown around by locals - pointing out buildings still peppered with bullet holes and shell damage from the revolution and stories about what it their life was like and losing family members to Ceaușescu's regime. One weird detail I remember was pointing out watermarks near the ceiling of the underground station as we descended the escalators from when it had flooded.

Such amazingly warm and lovely people.

To cap it all we had to bribe our way back into the airport and onto the onward flight because we had no stamp to enter the country. I'll always wonder if we could have avoided the whole ordeal by offering a bribe when we were initially refused to board the plane but we would have missed out a really special heart-warming break in Bucharest.