This post concludes my series on True Stories Well Told featuring essays by writers in my “Start Writing Your Life Story” workshop at the Art Lit Lab in Madison in Fall 2023. See my upcoming workshops here.

By Jane Koenig

In the early 1980s, I was a solo traveler in Asia and Europe. I fell in love with Greece and visited there twice, by myself.

I was outgoing and seemed to be fearless, but I was just plain dumb. I had no idea what could happen to me as a young woman with blonde hair and a darling figure. I was guileless and oh-so-trusting.

On one trip from Italy to Greece, I was on a ferry from Brindisi to Piraeus, the port city eight kilometers from Athens. I was very excited to be going to Greece for the first time. I was standing outside on the deck of the ferry, watching the star-speckled sea go by, when a Russian sailor approached me and struck up a conversation. He wore a uniform and a jaunty sailor hat. We discovered that we both loved Joni Mitchell.

 “I have a Joni Mitchell tape in my cabin down below. Do you want to listen to it?” he asked in his Russian-tinted English. So attractive and exotic!

Here you may be thinking—wait a minute! Surely, she won’t agree to this offer?

I knew about sex, of course, despite 12 years of Catholic schooling, and an ambiguous sex ed film strip that my mom had to give permission for me to watch in junior high, of Spanish dancers lying on a bed in their Flamenco finery.

But I had learned from my mom, that people can be trusted—that people were good and kind.

So, yes, I did go to this young sailor’s cabin and sat on his bunk, and we listened to Joni Mitchell songs on his tape recorder. He didn’t try a thing. He gave me some cheap Soviet pins to remember him by.

So, my trusting nature remained unwaveringly intact.

A few years later, I was on another ferry in Greece, this time sailing to Santorini. There was folk dancing and food sharing on the upper deck of the boat. It was a joyful party. I met an older, fatherly-type fellow, who was wearing a Greek fisherman’s cap. We chatted and discovered that we were both getting off in Santorini.

When we arrived, we hiked up the 588 serpentine stairs that led from the harbor up, up, up to the village of Thira (Fira) on the edge of what had been a volcano and found a family that was renting out rooms in their home. Their house was perched on the edge of the caldera high above the glittering Aegean. They only had one room left. It was summer and the height of tourist season—the island was packed.

You may be thinking—surely, she won’t put herself in harm’s way again?

But I did. The older man and I agreed to share a whitewashed domed room with two twin beds.

The next morning, in the early dawn light, I woke to see the not-so-fatherly figure of a man leaning over me, one knee on my bed and his hands on either side of my shoulders. I was wearing pale pink baby-doll pajamas. Why didn’t someone tell me—no, no, no! these are not appropriate when traveling and staying with strange men!

I shrieked incredulously, “What are you doing?”

He quickly got up and went back to his bed on the other side of the room.

Another escape! This one a little closer to disaster. How, how could I have been so stupid?

There are many more times that I brushed the underbelly of the male libido, but somehow in all my years of travel in Asia and Europe, I stayed out of trouble.

What was it that protected me? A guardian angel? A magic cloak of naivete? My thick veneer of innocence that may have protected me somehow? Or just plain dumb luck? I certainly wasn’t brave, or courageous. I do, though, miss that bold, exuberant, and confident young woman who would ask complete strangers in a taverna if she could join them for dinner! Which could have got me into hot water, but it was worth the risk.

© 2024 Jane Koenig

Jane Koenig is a recently retired English as a Second Language teacher. She still loves to travel. She introduced her husband to Greece, and happily, he loves it too! She loves to hang out with her kids, take long walks, and take wonderful classes, such as watercolor, drawing, and Sarah’s writing class!