Waitress. Born and raised in Grevena, now lives in Athens. After Tempi, she started travelling less frequently to see her friends in Thessaloniki.
I was born and raised in Grevena. My connection to Thessaloniki goes back to early childhood. We would often go there on trips or to visit relatives. From secondary school onwards, my older sister moved to Thessaloniki, and I would go often to see her.
When we finished school, the most common choice for most people was to put down Thessaloniki for their university applications, so most of my friends ended up as students there.
I ended up in Athens. I hadn’t even applied to any programmes in Thessaloniki, because I wanted to study theatre and I believed Athens was the only place where I could make that happen.
But I visited Thessaloniki often to see my friends, and the way I chose to travel was by train. It was easy — I usually took the night train, so I could fit it around work and not lose a whole day in Thessaloniki. I would leave Athens late at night, sleep on the train, and arrive early in the morning with the whole day ahead of me. These trips were very frequent — I would stay as long as time or money allowed. Sometimes I would go just to see an exhibition and come straight back.
That’s how I kept in touch with my old friends, how I could live in Athens without completely losing my connection to the people closest to me. At one point, I was also what you might call a “romantic migrant” — I was in a relationship with someone in Thessaloniki, and we used the train to see each other.
The train was also how I travelled to Grevena, because the bus had inconvenient timetables. So, I would take the train to Kalabaka, and my father would come pick me up.
On the day of the Tempi crash, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it had happened — what I was seeing in the early hours of 1 March. I didn’t even read about it; I just went to work and we talked about it for hours, just so my brain could process it. But at first, it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t go back to Thessaloniki or that I would stop seeing my friends
A while later, it was time for my next trip to Thessaloniki. I went to check tickets for the night train –the one I always took– and I thought, “No way I’m getting on that train.” I was scared. So, I started looking at buses, trying to find the least crowded one, and I haven’t been on a train since.
The bus is awful. The seats are uncomfortable, you always have someone next to you, and it takes forever. As for the plane, it’s probably too expensive, but I don’t even bother checking. As a result, because travel has become harder, I go up much less often. Luckily, my friendships haven't suffered at all because of this, but I would like to see them a bit more often.
I don’t know what it would take for me to get back on a train. Even if everything changed, even if everything were brand new, I don’t think I would. I can't really say why. It’s probably something traumatic and personal to me.