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Roula Khalaf, the FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
When we thought about the issue of spring trip this year, we got things in a little new direction, seeing emotional trips than holidays. The people who created and displayed in these stories went in search of something: inspiration, reconciliation, reunion, restoration or some kind of closure with the past.
Fiona Golfar never imagined as a child that she would one day look for citizenship from the place that once despised her family. In her part to win German nationality, she tells a story that takes her from her grandfather’s chocolate factory in East Berlin in 1921 in London, and through an extraordinary group of cases finding her staying outside the gates of the Berlin factory. It was the children of Fiona who asked her to apply for a German passport after Brexit because they wanted to be able to work in Europe. With this came the unpleasant meaning that the country that once forced her family to leave now could be a source of opportunity. Despite being a very personal experience, Fiona’s story speaks of a much broader story that is especially important today.
Ben Markovits started a cycling trip to Yorkshire Dalles earlier this year after finishing his latest novel, The rest of our livesand to mark the two-year anniversary of his cancer forgiveness. The journey, with his teenage son, celebrated many triumphs, above all the freedom to write a new chapter of his life. Its part is an honest examination of the high levels and the heart that accompanies an ambitious journey. Someone hopes to mark the beginning of a compilation of father’s adventures and Markovits about Yorkshire Hills.
What makes a place feel good? The World Happiness Report recently appointed Finland as the happiest place on Earth for the eighth time in as many years. We asked the Helsinki -based writer Carolina Forss to see her compatriots, cafes and culture to find out well why it may be. It can only be a matter of interpretation: Happiness means different things to different nations. Or is it probably the custom of the country’s sauna that sends serotonin levels from the scale?
I was lucky to visit Patagon last winter, a vast region shaking Chile and Argentina that has no specific limit and is often described as the most lonely place on Earth. I went down a part of Carretera Australia, a completed road in 2003 that connected remote communities throughout South Chile together for the first time. However, despite this relatively new connection, Patagonia still feels distant. Both magnificent and inspiring; I found that it had an almost melancholy beauty. No wonder travelers are forced to explore its boundaries – it’s a desert that seems to have no end.
Elsewhere, novelist Christopher Boll enjoys a very personal Odyssey about New York, Carlyle and film director Wim Wenders talks about why the places have been the starting point for all his films. Wenders’ films are evocative, exciting and inspiring – so much that with the years I have followed in its traces all over the world. I have scored Berlin, Hangzhou and Tokyo from the Wenders Control List but still dream of seeing Paris, Texas and Wupeperal of Pina Bausch.
@Jellison22
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