David F - 1. DF Chapter 1

After spending the past two years as part of an International Research Expedition at Antarctica, Davis was now making the long journey home to Copenhagen, via Hobart, Australia, where he was part of the Australian Antractic Division Research team.

Since being reunited with his mother in Copenhagen, just over twelve years ago, David had completed his education and gone on to complete a double degree at Oxford University, in the UK with a Bachelor in Education and a Bachelor in Science with Honours in the field of Geophysics and Geodynamics.

It was just four months after graduating with his double degrees, that he was accepted to participate in the Antarctic research programme, so he resigned from his part time job of teaching in a high school in the City of Leeds in the UK, to take up his postion, and travelled to Hobart, Australia to begin his training.

Now two years later, having completed a number of successful research projects in his specialty field of Geophysics, he was looking forward to seeing his mother Edith again, and before boarding his first flight from Hobart, he telephoned her, to inform her that he was returning home.

With fluency in Danish, English, German, Italian, Greek and that language he rarely speaks now, because of what he went through in his early years of his life – Bulgarian, David was often called on to help translate, when there was ever any language barrier issues.

On his second flight from Sydney to Singapore, he thought of what he went through as a young teenager, escaping from that concentration camp, and travelling all the way to Denmark to locate his mother – Edith, and before landing, he made the decision that he would make a pilgramage back to some of those places that he travelled through, and some of the people that he met, during his difficult journey to freedom.

David had kept a life diary since returning home to Denmark, and he was thinking of turning it into a book some day, but for now, he just wanted to get home and be with his mother again, and to relax for a while, before starting to plan for his pilgamage.

On arrival home he was greeted warmly by his mother, and he took a few days to just rest and relax, before breaking the news to her about his plans to make a trip to see some of the places that his travelled through when he was just twelve years old.

Edith was very concerned about this and encouraged David not to go ahead with these plans, but David informed his mother that he needed to do this, to be able to put the past to rest once and for all, and with that said, Edith agreed that he should go.

David took a few weeks to prepare for this road journey, and it was the first day of summer when he was finally ready to start his pilgamage, having planned the trip in minute detail of were he was going, but this time in the reverse direction.

Leaving his home city of Kolding, his first destination is the border town of Padborg in southern Denmark, the first main town that he came too on arrival in Denmark, after crossing the border from Germany.

At just eighty kilometres, the journey would only take him an hour, but he decided to take a little longer, calling in at a number of the smaller towns on the way, just to see how much they have changed in the twelve years since he was last there, and he would stay overnight here.