Hi! And welcome to the Europeans. You may have noticed, I'm not Katie or Dominic.

My name is Mick Tareorst and I'm one of the founders of Arwe Europe, a magazine and storytelling

collective. Since your usual hosts are on holiday, I'm taking over the airwaves for three special

episodes. It's been a weird and sad few months in Europe.

We've seen borders closing, countries turning in on themselves, long discussions over

corona bonds.

We've been missing a little bit of the love that usually makes this continent such an

amazing place.

So, over the course of three episodes, you're going

to hear from nine Europeans telling nine very different stories about the things they love

from somewhere else in Europe. We're calling it the chain, because it is basically a chain of love

letters from one European country to another. In this episode, you're here from a Romanian about a life-changing trip to the Netherlands.

Then we'll stay there to hear a story about Italy.

And then why not?

We'll hear from an Italian about why she loves Bosnia.

All of our storytellers have recorded themselves at home for obvious sea word reasons.

We actually quite like the intimacy of hearing people from their bedroom or kitchen

instead of a cold, dark, airless studio.

And all these stories are part of the Summer of Solidarity,

a pop-up storytelling project that's bringing together all kinds of creative people across Europe right now.

I'll be back to tell you a little bit about that at the end of the show, but now it's time to

settle in for our first story.

...