Not Afraid of the Fall

by Kyle James

  With Karim and Matteo chatting in Italian in the front seat, and Anna and Ash swapping traveling stories, I tried to get some writing done. It didn’t go very well because I couldn’t help but tune into the conversation in English. Anna was on a two-week holiday from her job in China and was traveling alone. She had couch-surfed from Sweden to London and now was doing the same through Italy. Eventually, when Ash started telling our story, I dozed off against the window.

  Karim stopped to get gas soon after I awoke. This also happened to be Matteo’s stop. We said good-bye to the little Italian fella, and I jumped in to sit shotgun, excited to stretch my legs.

  “Off to my hometown, Perugia, for lunch—is that okay?” exclaimed Karim. None of us knew where or what Perugia was, but we were all hungry and still had three hours to go before Rome, so we all cheered “Yes!” and set off. Karim took us to a restaurant that he claimed had the “best food in Italy.”

  Karim went up to the counter to order for us because he said it would be much easier. He returned to our table with three beers and a bottle of red wine (Anna wasn’t drinking). We drank the small beers as an appetizer and chatted about his girlfriend issues. Ash was especially interested in this topic, and Karim was more than happy to seek advice.

  “She just wants to get married right away,” he explained, clearly distraught.

  “Well, why don’t you marry her?” Ash responded, looking at me while she said it.

  “See, man, girls are all the same. It doesn’t matter the nationality,” I said playfully.

  Karim and Anna laughed, and Anna clasped her hands together, leaning in and looking back and forth between Ash, Karim, and me, smiling like she was watching a hilarious sitcom. I could tell she was really getting quite the international experience here: sassy Southern girl, animated Italian guy, and cocky Sasquatch.

  Karim opened the bottle of wine to let it breathe and then said, “Well, a wedding will cost me thirty thousand euros. Plus, I want children first, but she wants a wedding before children! I bought a Doberman puppy named Javelin, and her coworkers just say, ‘He is only buying you a puppy to avoid getting married!’”

  The way that he mimicked his girlfriend’s coworkers almost made me spit out my beer, I was laughing so hard. He’d sounded exactly like a nagging Italian woman.

  After letting the wine breathe, Karim poured each of us a glass and gave Anna one more look and motioned to fill hers.

  She said, “Okay, okay, I will have one!”

  We all cheered and raised our glasses to Anna just as our food arrived.

  The food did not disappoint. The double-crust pizza was homemade by the owner’s grandmother. Karim told us that the kid always said his grandma’s secret recipe was so good that he could sell it and make a fortune, and here he was with a packed restaurant.

  As we headed out the door, I handed Karim twenty euros at the same time Anna gave him ten euros. But he refused our money and said, “You guys are my guests, and this is how we do it in Italy!”

  I could not believe how generous this man was. Not only was he BlaBlaCar driving simply to have company, he took that company to a secret gem of a restaurant and paid for the meal. Karim was not just driving us across Italy; he was forming friendships along the way.

  The remainder of the wine-fueled drive was much more fun than the first leg. I introduced Karim to my DJ friend Nevy’s “Sun ‘n’ Shades” mixtape, and all four of us danced the entire ride to Rome. Karim was screaming over the loud music, “This is the best DJ I’ve ever heard!”

  When we reached Rome, we were all sad to say good-bye to one another. We were such an unlikely foursome, but we promised to stay in touch via Facebook.

  Then Anna blurted out sadly, “I can’t find you on Facebook. We aren’t allowed to use it in China.”

  So Ash wrote down our e-mails and phone numbers in the book she had just finished and gave it to Anna. Anna held the book in her hands and tears filled her eyes. She bear-hugged Ash so hard, it made Ash squeak like an inflatable toy being deflated. Karim looked at me, confused, and then bear-hugged me so hard, I made the same noise.

  We were leaving Italy tomorrow, which meant this was the last BlaBlaCar trip of our journey. After all the BlaBlaCar disasters, we couldn’t have ended on a higher note.

  8/20/15

  Rome, Italy → Rhodes, Greece

  We woke up in Italy for the very last time. The boot of Europe had kicked our asses from a budget standpoint, but we’d enjoyed great food, amazing scenery, and new friendships. But it was time to escape the land of pizza and pasta and enter a world where salad was in the name of the country’s staple item.

  We had to be out of the Airbnb by 11:00 a.m., but our flight wasn’t until 6:30 p.m. We decided that, rather than walk around Rome, sweating for four hours with our backpacks, we would just head to the airport. We were also in a bit of a flight predicament. We’d bought our flights to Rhodes for seventy-five dollars from an airline called Blu-express, and we’d paid for them via PayPal.

  We arrived at the station and immediately got to the bottom of this Blu-express mystery so that we could buy other tickets if we had to. I walked up to the first airline kiosk we came to and asked, “Where can I find the Blu-express kiosk?”

  The woman in the kiosk responded bluntly, “I have never heard of a Blu-express.”

  Yeah, neither have we. Ash and I looked at each other, afraid of the worst.

  We asked a man at the next desk just to be sure, and the man laughed and replied, “Ah yes, Blu-express, over there,” and pointed at a six-foot desk in between a vending machine and another airline whose name was in a language I didn’t recognize.

  I approached the woman behind the small counter and explained our situation with the PayPal receipt as if it were an uncommon scenario, and begged her to let us on the plane. She looked at me oddly and searched the names on her computer that looked like it belonged in 1997. She found our names and acted like the PayPal receipt was normal.

  We got in line, and the other 150 passengers rushed to line up behind us. I wasn’t sure why; we still had two hours before departure. But once we reached the ticket counter, it all made sense. The Blu-express woman handed me my boarding pass and said, “Here is your boarding pass. There are no assigned seats. Sit wherever you’d like.”

  Oh shit. At least Southwest had some sort of order; this was a good ol’-fashioned free-for-all. I didn’t want to resort to the old me, but who are we kidding? I was born to compete.

  As we eagerly rode the transfer bus, I spotted our plane. There was good news and bad news. The bad news: the plane looked like it was most likely going to crash into the Mediterranean. The good news: we would have plenty of space to sprawl out and scream when we went down. The plane was on my side of the bus. We slowly screeched to a stop. Game time.

  I flew out of the gate, practically prying the sliding doors open. The plane had two sets of stairs, one in the front and one in the back. The back was the obvious choice, so I could avoid small talk with the airline attendants. I was surprised at my lack of competition, and easily reached the stairs first. I took the steps two at a time and sprinted down the aisle to the exit row, where I plopped down and put my bag on Ash’s seat. I let out a deep exhale. Mission accomplished.

  I wasn’t proud of being this competitive, but when my mom repeatedly kicked my ass at Monopoly when I was six years old, I learned to hate losing. I sat proudly in my chair and spread my legs out. The plane started to fill up, with no one taking the other ten exit row seats yet. I looked around, confused. A flight attendant walked up the aisle, checking the luggage bins, and I asked her if these seats were reserved.

  “Nope, sit anywhere you would like,” she said.

  By the grace of God, our rinky-dink plane survived takeoff and we were on the way to the Greek isles. The three-hour flight was glorious with the extra legroom. Eventually I heard the ding announcing our descent into Rhodes. When the plane touched down, the weirdest thing I’ve ever experien
ced on an aircraft took place. At least 95 percent of the people on the plane erupted into full-blown applause. I mean, a few people even broke the no-seat-belt-loosening rule and stood up to give the pilot a standing ovation. I thought someone had proposed in the front.

  I came up with two theories: one, this just happened to be an entire plane full of unimaginably nice people who wanted to make the pilot feel truly special; or two, this was a group of very inexperienced travelers who thought they had about a fifty-fifty chance of not landing safely. I am going with the latter.

  Immediately after stepping off the small plane, I could smell and taste the sea. It had only been a couple of weeks since we were in Croatia, but the salt in the air felt great on my sun-beaten skin. It also felt great to sit down on the bus to the terminal; I couldn’t care less when we got to baggage claim.

  Once we had secured our backpacks, we took a public bus to the Old Town of Rhodes. We were exhausted at this point, but the excitement of being in Greece gave us that jittery, intoxicated feeling. The Greek isles sounded like something that existed in a world that I would never go to, like Hogwarts or Harvard.

  On the way to Old Town, our bus pulled through the New Town, which looked like a mix between a small American beach town and downtown Florence, Italy. We weren’t staying in the New Town, though; we’d booked our Airbnb inside the castle walls of the Old Town.

  We had to get ice cream to get Wi-Fi. We had to, okay? Once we’d secured our destination, we started the mile walk along the water and entered the large stone castle walls of ancient Rhodes. The streets were as lively at midnight as most cities are at 8:00 p.m. It seemed like every restaurant and shop was open and filled with consumers.

  Our Airbnb host, Stefano, had his property manager meet us on a moped, and he let us into our building, which was four hundred years old. The place had obviously been renovated on the inside—except for the bathroom. The toilet was in the shower. It was sort of a one-space-fits-all.

  8/21/15

  Rhodes, Greece

  I got out of bed and stepped into the all-in-one shower to bathe, brush my teeth, and pee. Ash was running around the room, radiating excitement as she lathered on sunscreen. Neither of us had seen the Old Town or the water in the daytime, so this was essentially our first time seeing Greece.

  The first thing we had to do was indulge in the local cuisine. After thorough research (you only get one first meal in Greece in your life), we found that a gyro place called Pita Fan had the best prices and reviews. Venturing down the cobblestone road among the sand-beaten buildings toward the Old Town festivities made us feel like we were venturing back in time. The Old Town strip was full of people, many of whom were trying to corral the masses into their restaurants. It seemed like every ten steps someone was trying to persuade us with a four-second pitch in their best English, “Food, drinks here!” or “Maybe snack?”

  We reached Pita Fan and ordered their traditional gyro. The cook grabbed a warm pita from the grill, shaved off some lamb and chicken from the meat rotating around the burner, and topped it with fresh tomatoes, onions, and tzatziki sauce. The portions were much bigger than we’d expected, and it was ready in twenty seconds.

  With our stomachs sufficiently filled, we were eager to show off our new baby bumps at the beach. We followed the main path out of the Old Town to the large castle gates and stared across the blue sea to Turkey. Turkey was only thirty miles away, and if you looked at Rhodes on a map, it would make much more sense if this were a Turkish island instead of a Greek one.

  We crossed the road to our destination for the day and most likely week from the looks of it: Elli Beach. The hype of Greek beaches is real, I thought. We both reached the perfect vantage point of the beach and stopped in our tracks. It would have been completely silent, but Ash blurted out, “Shut the fuck up.” Never fails.

  The beach was covered in small, soft pebbles that massaged our feet as we walked toward the water and a café right on the beach. We sat down and ordered two large Alfas, a Greek beer brewed in Athens. It wasn’t great beer, but it was cold. As I sipped my drink and listened to the sound of seabirds singing, I spotted something that made the child in me do backflips. A few hundred yards out in the middle of the light-blue water was a massive three-level diving platform. It was pretty far from shore and would definitely be a ten-minute swim, but there was no way we weren’t going to be jumping from it in the near future. After we finished our beers, I paid Thanassius, the owner, and tipped him very well, as I imagined we would find ourselves here often this week.

  Ash and I found what looked like a safe place for our backpack and raced like eight-year-olds, diving into the cool water. I could feel my body breathe a sigh of relief as my tight, sun-beaten skin instantly began healing in the salty medicine. After floating and laughing for a few minutes, we swam out to the platform. Normally, I wouldn’t swim into deep water, but that was because of the fear of the unknown. There was no unknown in Greece. The water was transparent, and even while disrupting the surface with my arms as I swam, I could see the fifteen feet down to the bottom and pick out individual shells. When we reached the platform, we watched people jumping.

  The first level of the platform was about three feet above water to the right. Then a second level to the left was ten feet up. The highest level was a long platform twenty feet above the sea. We obviously climbed to the top first and crept to the edge. We were expert jumpers at this point, and before long we jumped as hard as we could and soared through the air before crashing into the water. We enjoyed the clear blue sea for hours before deciding to head back to check on our backpack.

  The swim back felt much longer than the swim out to the platform. To our slight surprise, our backpack was still there, and we sat on the beach in relief. It wasn’t until dark that we started back toward our castle for the evening. My neck and back were sore from jumping all day, but I couldn’t wait to wake up tomorrow and jump again. What a great feeling, I thought.

  8/22/15

  Rhodes, Greece

  I woke up and felt like I had spent the night in a washing machine. What an awful feeling. Apparently, fifty jumps into the Aegean Sea from twenty feet in the air had taken a toll on my body. The muscles in my neck were strained, and the area between my elbows and armpits was bruised from flailing my arms when hitting the water. We decided we would do what any sane people would do—grab two gyros from Pita Fan, walk back to Elli Beach, and swim to the platform and jump off it.

  I was always taught not to swim on a full stomach, so I washed down my gyro with a beer at Thanassius’s place. Ash wasn’t in the mood for a noon beer after three gyros in two days, so she set off to find sea glass. It was a quiet Monday morning in Rhodes, and I was the only person in the restaurant, so Thanassius came over to chat.

  Thanassius was the owner, bartender, and main waiter at the Meltemi Café, and he spoke English, Italian, French, German, and Greek. I was in awe at this achievement, and he explained, smiling, that once you learn two, the rest came easy. (Damn, I am still struggling to learn one.)

  I told him about our journey and asked him what we should do while we were in Greece. He recommended we go to the other major city on the island of Rhodes—Lindos—and a few other restaurants. I loved that Thanassius was not a salesman or chasing ulterior motives. This was refreshing in a place where people constantly tried to corral you into their restaurants. He also offered to hold our backpack behind the counter while we jumped off the platform. My man.

  In just two days we had a local friend, a favorite gyro place, and a home in the heart of the Old Town. Most people would venture out to explore a difference beach today, but Ash and I loved being part of a community. We preferred to get to know a few people and make lasting relationships than get to know a ton of people as acquaintances.

  I was working on relaxing on this trip, something I constantly struggle with. It’s not that I don’t have the time; I just don’t have the patience. Technology and social media have created a world
that we feel so connected to that both have become an addiction. It is hard to go off the grid, and I don’t mean for a lifetime—I mean for a few hours.

  I floated in the shallow water, picking up handfuls of pebbles and looking for sea glass. I tried to let the sea floor massage my feet as I used my legs as anchors in the small waves.

  We had been reading about the rafts of migrants washing up on Kos, the large island directly north of us. I scanned the horizon in front of us, expecting to see people coming to shore to escape the atrocities of their country. This meditation worked for half an hour, but the need for excitement overpowered my foot massage and I started for the platform. Relaxing was a work in progress.

  I dove off the five-foot platform a few times to get my diving confidence back up before reaching the ten-foot platform. I peered over the edge and laughed out loud at the thought of diving off this platform. There was no way I could dive headfirst from this high up.

  The rest of the day was a repeat of the morning. We cycled between drinking, swimming, sea-glass searching, and more drinking.

  8/23/15

  Rhodes, Greece

  We didn’t reach Thanassius’s place until around noon after sleeping in. He noticed us arrive and brought us beers immediately. Not sure if I felt embarrassed or flattered.

  Ash decided to lie out on the beach for a while. This sounded far from appealing to me, so I swam up to the platform. I had only been there for a minute when a little chubby Greek kid walked up to me and said, “Will you face-to-face with me?”

  Face-to-face with you? I thought. I just met you.

  So I asked the obvious question to an inquiry such as this and he replied, “We jump at same time and face each other in the air.”

  Well, this seemed weird, but there were five to ten young kids out here jumping, and no one was playing with this little guy. “I don’t see why not,” I said, smiling.

  “So, yes?” he asked, confused.