The loudspeaker cracked through the humid Athens air:«Αναχώρηση πτήσης TWA 1122 για Νέα Υόρκη. Άμεση επιβίβαση, έξοδος νούμερο 2.»Then came the English: “Departure flight TWA 1122 to New York. Immediate boarding Gate number 2.”

It was 1980.

Athens still had Hellinikon Airport then, low ceilings, the faint smell of cigarette smoke, queues that bent like snakes, and the sight of relatives waving handkerchiefs through the glass. There was no duty-free glamour, no polished marble. Just the weight of goodbyes, the clatter of luggage, and the anxiety of stepping into a world that felt impossibly far.

For me, that call was more than a boarding announcement. It was the beginning of a different life, a leap across an ocean to a place I had only known from movies, letters, and stories.

My best friend Michael and I were finishing our Master’s coursework at the La Verne satellite campus in Athens. He was selling office equipment for a living. I was completing my 34-month mandatory sentence in the Greek Air Force. (Yes, 34 months, enough time to grow a beard, a family, and possibly a vineyard.)

Just as we were preparing to start writing our thesis, a professor dropped the academic equivalent of a nuclear bomb:

Stuck? And then he whispered the loophole: finish one semester at the main campus in California and write your thesis there. This way you will earn your degree from the University of Verne in California.

Easier said than done.

No cellphones. No internet. No Google. Only rotary phones, stamps, and bureaucracy.

We began our scavenger hunt for information: professors, the Hellenic American Union, the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Embassy, libraries, anyone who looked like they might have read a pamphlet about visas or what to do to get accepted by a University. To study in America, we needed proof of financial stability, strong ties to Greece, and above all acceptance by the main campus in California.

That’s when our real education began.

Michael and I set up a nightly ritual. At 7 PM Athens time, when Los Angeles finally woke up, we met at his office and began dialing the University of La Verne admissions office. One expensive international call after another. His company phone bill must have looked like the GDP of a small island. We’d call again near midnight for updates. Day after day, week after week.

At first the university staff were baffled.“Why not just finish in Athens?” they asked.We explained. They shrugged. We begged. More shrugs.

Finally, out of sheer desperation, we threatened to report them to the Ministry of Education in Sacramento. Don’t ask me how we discovered that tidbit, some whispered rumor through JUSMAGG (Joint United States Military Aid Group Greece) where I served as an liaison officer half my military service or a helpful American officer at the U.S. Embassy. All I know is it worked.

Somehow, with a push from the U.S. Ambassador himself, the acceptance letter was finally approved after a two month effort.

But now, how to get the sacred piece of paper to Athens? FedEx didn’t exist. Regular Greek post would take a year, plus an extra two months if someone in ELTA (Greek Post Office) decided to take a cigarette break.

The solution? TWA.

Yes, Trans World Airlines. We called the main switchboard of TWA and made arrangements based on instructions we received from the US Embassy in Athens. The University handed the envelope to TWA in Los Angeles, a pilot carried it across the Atlantic, and via the U.S. Embassy’s diplomatic pouch it landed in our hands in Athens. To this day, I still shake my head in disbelief.

Miracle in hand, visas approved, we booked our flights: Athens → New York → Los Angeles.

Michael had never flown before. I had flown only short distances in Europe. A transatlantic flight was another universe.

And so, on that August day, we stood at Boarding Gate 2 for TWA 1122.Two young Greeks with visas, one acceptance letter, zero plan for what awaited us in America.

We boarded. Sat at the back of the plane. Buckled in.

We dozed on and off, lulled by the hum of the engines and the endless Atlantic night. Hours blurred together until the cabin lights flicked on and the crew moved down the aisle, hurriedly handing out pillows to every passenger.

Strange, I thought. Pillows?

Then came the sound—crackle, crackle—as the intercom came alive. The captain’s voice was unnervingly calm, the kind of tone you’d expect for: “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying TWA. We’ll be landing shortly.”

Instead, we heard:

Crash position?Emergency water landing?On my first transatlantic flight?

I looked at Michael. His eyes were wide, his hands gripping the armrests like he could steer the plane himself. Around us, the cabin erupted into a low panic, prayers whispered, beads fingered, a baby crying. The crew, professional but pale, moved briskly down the aisles, repeating instructions.

We bent forward, heads pressed against seats, pillows clutched to our chests. And in that moment I thought: All that bureaucracy, all those months of late-night phone calls, all the diplomatic pouches in the world… only to end up at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The miracle happened. Instead of plunging into the Atlantic, we limped our way to the very edge of North America, landing at a military airfield in St. John’s, Newfoundland. One engine was still turning, the other had been shut down—out of fuel. We touched down hard, but alive.

Passengers clapped, cried, crossed themselves. Michael and I just sat there, stunned. We had come within a whisker of becoming history’s least successful graduate students.

And here’s the strange part; I erased the whole episode from my memory. Completely gone. Thirty years later, when I met Michael in Athens during one of my trips back, he casually brought it up over coffee:

“Do you remember when we almost ditched in the Atlantic?”

I blinked at him. “What?”

He laughed. “You’ve forgotten? Emergency landing in St. John’s? One engine? Crash position?”

I stared at him like he was telling someone else’s story. Apparently, my brain had decided: Nope, that file is too traumatic. Delete.

Michael remembered every detail. I remembered… nothing.

After a few hours on the ground in Newfoundland, refueling, inspections, nervous passengers pacing like caged animals, we were cleared to continue. When the engines roared back to life, I think half the cabin crossed themselves again.

Finally, after what felt like several lifetimes, the skyline of New York appeared through the window. Steel, glass, smoke, bridges, the city I’d only seen in movies. For two Greeks who had fought through months of bureaucracy and nearly ended up in the Atlantic, this felt like stepping onto another planet.

The moment the wheels hit the JFK runway, the plane erupted in applause again. This time not for survival, but for arrival.

Going through immigration and customs was a different kind of battlefield. Long lines, stern officers, questions fired like bullets:“How long are you staying?”“Where are you going?”“Do you have funds?””Are you carrying any feta?”

Michael and I clutched our precious visas and university acceptance letters like holy relics. After what we’d been through, no stamp on earth could scare us.

Because of the delayed arrival, we missed our connecting flight to Los Angeles. No other flights were available that night, so TWA handed us a voucher for a “hotel” in Jamaica, Queens.

Hotel? Shuttle? We had no idea what that even meant.

We collected our luggage and followed the signs to the curb outside JFK, where a stream of buses and vans pulled up. Eventually, a battered white van with a small trailer rattling behind it stopped in front of us. Out stepped a tall African American driver with a booming voice and an accent we could barely decipher.

We hurried to load our suitcases onto the little trailer when the driver suddenly barked at another passenger:

Michael and I froze. Roof? Was this… normal? Around us, everyone laughed and piled into the van like it was nothing. We exchanged a look: We’ve clearly entered a new dictionary.

The van was already packed, people squeezed shoulder to shoulder, luggage clanking in the trailer. As we pulled away from JFK, Queens flashing by the windows, I remember thinking: this wasn’t Athens, or even Europe. This felt like a parallel universe.

At the “hotel” in Jamaica, Queens, we checked into a room that smelled faintly of cigarettes, disinfectant, and fear. For two Greeks fresh off the plane, it might as well have been the set of a crime drama.

We locked the door. Then we slid the two chains. Then we tested it twice.

Half the night we sat on the beds with the color TV blaring, not because we wanted to watch, but because we thought noise might scare off potential intruders. The news anchors were shouting, commercials were louder, and everything looked surreal in Technicolor.

Every creak in the hallway made us jump. Every siren outside felt like it was heading straight for us. I remember Michael whispering to me:

Of course, nothing happened. By morning, we were still alive, still jet-lagged, and ready to run back to JFK like survivors crawling toward salvation.

We had no idea the “shuttle” actually ran on a schedule. So, the next morning we missed couple of “scheduled departures” and casually showed up at JFK about twenty minutes before our flight was scheduled to depart.

Busted, right? Not quite.

As we entered the terminal, Michael stopped an American Airlines employee, looked her dead in the eye, and calmly announced:

Her jaw dropped. Then she blinked. And then, without another word, she started sprinting, dragging us and our luggage behind her.

Back then there were no endless TSA lines, no removing shoes, no conveyor belts of laptops and liquids. Just a walk (or in our case, a desperate sprint) from the entrance of the terminal to the entrance of the plane.

Somehow, against all odds, we made it, hauling our so-called “checked” baggage with us onto the plane as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

By the time we collapsed into our seats, sweaty, disheveled, and absurdly triumphant, one thought echoed in my mind:

Los Angeles sounded like paradise.

to be continued on October 7th…

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