Hitch hiker
I lost my belief in religion in Bethlehem. I was there three weeks after the Six Day War and Israel really challenges your views. You walk around a corner and you are suddenly in completely different way of life.
I got to meet Jews, Christians, Druze, Bahai, Muslims and many different interpretations of these faiths including a town of black, Christian Baptists who had come from America.
I had some doubts about religion. My family has two cases in the recent history of people being thrown out of the family for marrying someone of the wrong faith.
I had gone through the formal set of lessons of Confirmation – but these filled me with unease. Which I pondered as I travelled.
It was in Bethlehem seeing the different sects of the Christian aggressively competing. The sadness and stupidity of the war as most people on both sides were really nice.
Then one minute I was a Christian and the next I was an atheist. And when you make that step you can’t go back.
What’s something you never believed until you experienced it?
That I could hitch-hike from Athens to Calais until I had no choice but to do so. All I had was $5, three cans of food and a loaf of bread.
It took ten days and slept on building sites on the way home. Got pretty merry with alcohol three times: toasting the support the British gave to Greece during the war, driving down the German autoban with an American soldier and I shared a bottle of whisky with this poor guy in Belgium as we were stuck in a horrible field and it was his 21 st birthday.
Had five maching guns pointed at me as I had started picking twigs in a military zone in Yugoslavia. (Not as scary as the Israeli security who objected to my mate taking photographs of their mini-submarines on my way out). Travelled the only two miles of the trip in a horse drawn cart with no suspension. And ended up in down and out hostel in Brussels waiting for some cash from my parents.
All in all a good trip.