Welcome to Germany. Here you are safe part 2

Hello to everybody,

My name is Rami and I come from Syria. I met Maria in April during the first meeting of the Bookclub organized in the public library of Bonn when Larissa Bender presented his book "Innenansichten aus Syrien", a collection of stories, interviews and testimonies about the war in Syria. Mary offered to help me learn German and we began to meet regularly. he told me about this multicultural blog asking me to recount my journey from Syria to Germany.

Before the war, Syria was a very beautiful and happy country where there was peace. Suddenly we found ourselves in hell. We could not believe that what was happening in Syria was true ... At first we thought that soon everything would be back to normal. I was working as an accountant at the Ministry of Finance and attended a master's degree in Banking & Finance. For a long time we lived in the hope that the war would end soon, but unfortunately this did not happen.

Then I decided to run away from the country along with my older brother. The trip started from Lebanon, where we embarked for Turkey. In the port of Tripoli (Lebanon), there were more than 10,000 Syrians with many small children: it was really sad to observe those people who just like me had to leave the old life behind to start over from scratch in an unfamiliar place. We waited 48 hours before the Lebanese police did we embark and while waiting we met many people with whom we shared stories and ideas. Most people wanted to get in Germany because Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that "The Syrian refugees are welcome in Germany." Others wanted to go to England because they spoke English and others in Sweden because there they had relatives.

The ship departed at 10am and it was my first time on a ship. We arrived at 4 pm in a small Turkish village. From there we took a bus to Azmer. We traveled for 15 hours and then by Azmer we headed to a small town called CESMA.Since in Turkey the majority of the people did not speak English and none of us spoke turkish, communication was very complicated. We took a room in a hotel and finally after 4 grueling days I could take a shower and sleep decently. Past three days in CESMA, we met a smuggler and we headed to Greece. Our trip began at 5 pm and lasted 12 hours: 5 am after we arrived on a very beautiful Greek island. A few hours later we took a ferry to Athens, where we arrived at 13 and we decided to continue the journey with two Syrian boys.

After two days in Athens I have been preparing for the second part of the trip: we had to buy jackets, clothes, food because the traffickers had we not allowed to bring anything on board and then we left all our belongings in Turkey. By bus we arrived to the Macedonian border that we have passed smoothly and from there we continued by train in Serbia. At that point we had to walk more than three hours in the hot sun so much that some people fainted and others have had a sunstroke. Fortunately in our group we were all fine. In the bus we then reached Budapest, where we came to know that Hungary had closed the borders and then we had to stop there for a few days until Croatia has not opened its borders to refugees. Once arrived to the Croatian border, we met many people from different weights: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Syria. Early in the morning we went by train to Zagreb where we were able to rest before leaving for Austria. E 'was here that I realized that the worst part of the trip was over and now reach our ultimate goal -the Germany- was only a matter of time.

Just arrived in Germany to expect there were many people there they smiled and said hello. The first phrase I heard on my arrival in Germany was " Welcome to Germany. Finally you are safe! ".