Between fantasy and reality

“It is my policy to travel cheap, fast and environment friendly. Global warming and the written agreement after the climate summit in Copenhagen do not help quite as much.“

“Do you have any idea how harmful this can of beer is to the environment?“ – that is how many a conversations between Paul, Ana and Victor have started. They all study at Graz University of Technology; Ana is Bulgarian, Victor an Paul both come from Bazias in Romania, which they only found out when they met in Austria.

They only have little money and therefore have to save up for the Satuday nights on which they meet to play chess and debate about pollution, politics, the evolution of humankind and other current topics from newspapers like “Die Presse“ or ”Die Kronen Zeitung“.

Their meetings often do not end before Sunday morning; not seldom, the friends part in anger and do not speak to each other for several days. Why is that? Because they can never agree over chess. Nevertheless, they always find a common basis, which reconciles them again. And therefore, they know that there will always play again the next Saturday – with the same disputes and compromises.

After their exams, Ana and Victor took the first flight homewards. Paul had told them that he’d go home by ship, which was not only cheaper and more relaxed, but also corresponded to his political attitude. After a few weeks, they met again on a Saturday night and Paul started the conversation: “It is my policy to travel cheap, fast and environment friendly. Global warming and the written agreement after the climate summit in Copenhagen do not help quite as much. To lower global warming by two degree Celsius is a utopia, if we do not act accordingly! That’s why it was the best solution for me to go home by ship. It was fast, efficient, cheap and ecological. It certainly looked better than the Titanic and I felt as if I was going home on a waterbed. Early in the morning, the ship left Vienna; the next stop was Bratislava. I have never seen a city like that! In Budapest and Belgrad, I’d loved to have stopped the engines – and time as well.“

When Paul had told them some more stories from his journey, they continued to play chess. Surprised about this traffic system he had not known existed in his hometown, Victor asked Paul at which time he had reached Bazias. The silence, which followed this question, made Paul’s story seem less authentic; but his awareness of regional co-operations and the European political strategies kept Victor from doubting his friend. At the end of their converstion, Victor asked Paul whether they could travel home together, the next time.

Paul did not attend their next meeting, but Victor and Ana were not mad with him. They had found out that their friend had been lieing and his story about the ship and the cheap, environmental friendly trip had been pure fantasy. Paul had invented all of this because he was ashamed of not being able to afford a plane or train ticket. His father’s business was not doing very well and Paul therefore had not been able to leave Graz. And even worse: he was on the verge of having to drop out of university. But nevertheless, Paul became a “captain on the Danube“ that evening or did he simply implement the Danube Strategy into a real, everyday plan based on a simply yet complex regional co-operation? So is Paul a liar or the creator of a plan?

Is Paul an example of how far simple people, as you and I are, can come? And who is Paul, in the end? The truth is: Paul is fiction, as well as his friends and the ship. But even if he doesn not really exist, he nonetheless is alive in ever person living on the side of the Danube and whishing to be able to travel that way.

We call the Danube “The King of European Rivers“ or “The Blue Connection through Europe“, but perhaps we should be more pragmatic and simply call it “a solution“. For the future of Europe and its young generations!

Corina Sfia
Publicat in Danube Connects, ianuarie 2011
http://danube-connects.eu/course/view.php?id=70&lang=en