FINDING SOME SUBSTANCE

When you are young, and has to learn what real life is all about, its sometimes difficult to find your own ways. You are supported and guided by your friends, the school, society in general  your parents and family. Not much room to explore your own individual capacities outside of this context..

I had a strong urge to find out, would I be able to survive… on my own… among complete strangers? 

After college,  I took a job in a nearby town. Every morning I took the train early in the morning, and worked my way through the day, with the most boring job in town, I had to sort tons and tons of mail every day in accordance with the zip codes. Well, I did  learn a lot of Danish zip codes, and I did earn a bit of money. 

One morning, as I was waiting for the train, I got this strange notion that the train would be late, it was not, it was right on time. So much for that notion! However, after half an  hours ride, the train suddenly stopped…. And it didn’t start again, it was completely broken down, and they had to get another engine to haul it to the nearest station.

As I was waiting for the next train, I got another strange notion…. I would probable get fired…. I decided that if this happened, then I would buy a ticket to somewhere, to a country that I didn’t have much or any knowledge about, and stay there for a while.

It happened, I was fired. When I finally arrived, I was called into the managers office, and was told that my services was no longer required, not exactly a great loss. I got my paycheck and went back home.

I called a travel agency right away, and  bought a ticket to Athens. Wow, Greece, Yes! Way to go brother, no idea about how to speak Greek, and no idea if they understood English at all.  The travel  would start a month later… plenty of time  to get rid of my earthy goods, sound equipment, guitars, painting equipment, the car and almost everything else was sold of to the highest bidder. Not much money, but I figured it could last for a while, in this undeveloped part of the world. Greece that is !!

It was a normal charter trip, with one week in this magnificent and highly polluted town, about 3 years after the fall of the regime, and  still a tense atmosphere, especially around the university campus, where many students was killed.

I must say, I didn’t participate much in the normal travel activities, and must have been a  very big disappointment to the tour guide, as I didn't show up to any of the planned tours.  At least it left  more space to the others.

Some years earlier, my mother had visited Crete, and became friends with a Crete family. The youngest son, was studying economics in Athens. I got hold of his address and gave him a call. We meet at his apartment and over the next  week we became good friends. I eventually ended up staying there for a while , after the plain had left for Denmark…. Now, this was something, completely (or almost) alone in a very strange place… with very little money and 19 year old; would I be able to survive?

One evening we got drunk, discussed a lot, an later with out into the underground nightlife in Athens. It was still not really accepted for the students to gather, so this had to be done in a very clandestine manner. We walked the small streets, and then the even smaller alleys and eventually we went into a backyard in down into a basement.  I had absolutely no clue to where I was, and would definitely not be able to find my way back to the flat.

After some kind of identification procedure, we finally entered our destination. A cave like room crowded with people, and an air think enough to take the sharper edge of any standard samurai  sword. Noisy and slightly dirty as well. It was all young people.

My friends, said hello to all the others, they were obviously well know in this kind of environments. We  go a bottle of Uzo and sat down. The discussions were intense, they were very eager to know how the Danish society worked, how about the Danish model of democracy and what about “elefteria” freedom.  After a while, a young man stood up and spoke to the others, obviously he was some kind of leader. I didn’t understand a word of it, not even when my friend tried to translate, I was just too drunk, and could no longer keep focus to decipher his Greek-English Accent.  Anyway, all the sudden the crowd stated singing, Not Greek songs, but Italian ones, “Avanti Populo” , “bella  chao” and other revolutionary communist songs. It went on for a while and after the singing people slowly called it a night, and went home, and so did we…. Probably we have walked the distance twice.

A couple of days later, my first Greek friend helped me to find my  way to Piraeus, the harbor area outside Athens. It was different and very scary, lots of people and almost just as many small stores and boats. It still amazes me, how people can find their ways in these kind  of environments, but he did. We a two way open ticket to Irakleaon, and with the help of my friend I manage to find the boat… buy, buy Athens, and on my own again….. this seemed to be working out great, I was still alive, and I still had a bit of money left.

Of course I had called home a couple of times, and of course my mother was slightly worried about how this, my first adventure would end.

The boat was fairly big, and slightly used and definitely dirty. It would take 18 hours to reach Irakleon the main city on Crete. I spent the daytime in open air, enjoying to colors of the Mediterranean, and in the evening I went inside, found a nice blue plastic chair and tried to fall asleep… difficult, very difficult. However, I might haft lost consciousness for a few minutes every now and then.

Next day, around noon, we could finally see Crete in the horizon, and a  couple of hours later we arrived in Irakleon. And of I went….. what now?

My first Greek friend had a brother,  he was working in a bank, and right there was a the name of the bank on a big building (well the building in Irakleon is not very big) but it was bigger  than most. I decided to challenge my luck, and went inside and asked to meet his brother. The lady, understood the message and after a while, a young man came over to me and introduced himself. I told him about his brother, and he told me that he had  meet my mother several years earlier, we were connected right away. He was about to leave for the day and I waited for him outside.

THIS IS PROBABLY BIG ENOUGH TO BECOME A SHORT NOVELL... BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR A WHILE....