Herzzerreißend

I have just learned this word from a friend.  It is German for hearbreaking.

As I write, news is filtering through from Berlin that a deliberate attack on a crowded Christmas market has killed at least nine people and injured dozens more.  The details are still unclear but early reports are that a lorry from Gdansk in Poland has been hijacked and deliberately driven into the market at Breitscheidplatz, just off Kurfürstendamm, the main shopping street in Berlin.

In times like these, as human beings in the western world, we put ourselves at risk every single time we get out of bed and leave the house.  As travellers to foreign climes we increase those risks nth fold.  And as for us solo travellers, well, it does’t bear thinking about.

My only living relative, my brother, is incredibly proud of the fact that I travel solo.  I often feel the need to protect him so I have told him that the odds are that one day, in the pursuit of doing something I love, I might never come home, but he should know that if this ever happens, I have gone doing something I love and refused to be deterred from.

I don’t want to say any more right now, other than that my every piece of my heart goes out to Berlin, to everyone who has been injured and to anyone who has lost someone they love.

Whoever the perpetrator is, and whatever their motives may be (one can only guess at this point), they clearly don’t know Berlin like I do.  We shall mourn but we shall not intimidated by such horrific cowardice.  We shall just continue to strive for peace.

I’ll see you in a few days Berlin xx