What follows is a remarkable account by an extraordinary woman of a reclaimed adventure. It is a transcription of the daily log kept by 85 year old Lyndie Duff in her careful handwritten script, as she voyaged down the Danube River through Eastern Europe.
Vladimir Putin was continuing to try to recapture the Ukraine. Donald Trump was reshaping American politics.
Before boarding the flight to Budapest, Lyndie was apprehensive that people would be hostile during the current political upheavals. Never shying from conversations with strangers, she had an entirely different experience.
This is a record not so much of places visited as of individuals met and engaged with. Far more than a mirror travelogue, her account aims to portray “real people instead of nameless faces in faraway places,” as she put it at one point during the journey.
The journey lasted for 12 days. So will the posts that follow.
It was her second Danube cruise. She sacrificed the previous journey (and most of her savings) by laboring to care for a blind companion who fell gravely ill at the start of the trip. During the past year, many friends and strangers have donated to the Lyndie Fund, so that Lyndie could repeat the cruise.
But we had a setback. When her new traveling companion had to back out at the last minute, leaving no option but to pay a single-occupancy premium, she was determined to follow through with the cruise – if only because so many others had come forward to help. To do so, she had to deplete almost all of her meager savings.
We continue the effort to raise the remainder.
Thank you for reading. Enjoy the adventure!