Before Family Tree Magazine launched five years ago, I worked as an English editor for a tourism-magazine publisher in Bucharest, Romania. You learn a lot about another culture when you're immersed in it, and I quickly picked up on a key characteristic of Romanian society: It's timeless — meaning punctuality isn't Romanians' forte. From public transportation to businesses' hours of operation, schedules serve only as guidelines. In practice, people move at their own paces.

Which is how I found myself loitering on a street corner one September morning. I'd always taken the tram to work, but on this particular day, the driver apparently had arrived early or bypassed my stop. Since the weather was nice and I was already late (not that it mattered, of course), I decided to ditch the tram and walk to the office.