I had a near death experience seven years ago and it was absolutely breathtaking, in the negative sense of course.

It was a sunny and hot summer morning and my parents and I were at the FCO Airport, waiting the call of our flight, that would bring us to Skiathos, a beautiful Greek island where we would spend our holidays. Now when I think about this experience, I believe that I would have had to consider the island’s name such as a prediction; in fact Skiathos is similar to Italian word “schianto”, that means crash.

The flight was short and without problems, but the complication arrived with the landing. This Greek very small island is famous for is  characteristic airport that is divided from the sea only by a street and the beach. I don’t know what happened but in few minutes the plane was going at very high speed towards the sea, because the airstrip was too short for it. Obviously all the peolple on board were completely in panic because if the pilot didn’t succeed in stopping the rush in time, the plane would crash against the water and it would certainly explode after the impact. However, we were lucky, because the pilot was very brave and expert so that he managed to stop the plane just before the end of the airstrip.

It was a traumatic experience and I will never cease to thank that pilot, nevertheless it didn’t stop me from flying again. 

A time when I have esperienced danger was about two years ago. I like telling it because it made me think about the fact that there is always a margine of risk, even when we were sure there is not.

My friends and I went to Mykonos, a beautiful Greek island of the Cyclades on our summer holidays. I remember it was our first trip on our own and we were very excited. Earlier we were warned enough of the risks and possible unpleasant situations (my parents and travel agents thought about it!). We agreed to choose the taxi as a mean to move at night, known to be safer.

At one night we planned to go to a disco quite far from our hotel, then we called a taxi and reached the location. We danced until the event finished and then we go outside the disco looking for a taxi to come back again. Fortunately we saw one and we got in. It was all dark and late so we did not focused on the face of the driver. The man asked us where we had to go and left.

After few minutes we saw suspicious things: the man had got a bottle of alcohol near the seat and drove badly, avoiding other vehicles on purpose in a bad manner. We warned him of the speed limits but he seemed to ignore us. Frightened, we asked to get off of the car but he pushed the safety locks and kept on driving too fast. We undestood it was better to find a solution and in a short time before risking an accident or something else bad. It was unclear what the man wanted. I pretended to call my father speaking loudly in English and suddenly the man stopped near a petrol station. He told us to get off immediately and we jumped out of the car before seeing him leaving again. We had a sigh and saw the frighten in ours eyes.

We checked a map and reached the hotel by foot, taking by hands. We did not sleep and spent the whole night meditating on what happened. There's no point in saying that we asked next lifts only to crowded buses or relying on our feet. Who would have said that a taxi driver could be so weird?