Casablanca
The Beginning
In 2024 I spent 6 weeks in London, a fugitive from my regular life in Harlem, New York, helping Mum deal with the subsidence issues in our family home and trying not to kill myself as I navigated sixty years of accumulated clutter to tackle odd jobs with archaic tools that disintegrated as soon as I touched them.
It didn’t help that our evenings were spent watching Mum’s favorite Indian soap operas—without her hearing aid. Or that she’s managed to cram three freezers full of food, to the point where you can’t snag a fish finger without risking an avalanche of Cumberland sausages or a sharp Sheriga crab landing on your bare feet.
One night, desperate to escape the soaps, I retreated to my room and rewatched Casablanca for the umpteenth time. The opening credits and that black line snaking across the map from Paris to North Africa, always take me back to school geography class, where I’d trace the globe’s smooth surface and dream of far-off lands.
The movie was also a great reminder of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world. So when Bogey delivered the immortal line, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” I took it as a sign. It was time to chart my own course across Europe and finally embark on my long-awaited journey from London to Crete.
My trip didn’t have the glamor of Bogey and Bergman’s, but I did feel like a fugitive of sorts—escaping New York after parting ways with my job at Lincoln Center after 14 years. Free from the 24/7 grind, I set out to reclaim my creative life as a filmmaker, travel writer, and photojournalist. And, of course, to do what my family does best: think food, eat food, speak food.
My Trip
When planning the trip via Eurail using the Global Pass, I realized the cities I’d chosen—Brussels, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and Istanbul—were steeped in classic noir ambiance, a fitting nod to my love for the genre. It felt like stepping into the shoes of a Hitchcockian protagonist from Foreign Correspondent or The Lady Vanishes, with a dash of Jason Bourne black ops. I was chasing awe-inspiring food and drinks, one-in-a-million encounters, unbridled freedom, and a white-knuckle story to reignite my creative fire.
Whether I’d find anything like that was debatable. But at the very least, I was guaranteed some great scenery, interesting meals, mild peril, and a solid appreciation for Google Translate.
What follows is the story of my attempt to rediscover myself on the road to Crete.
