INGRID (ENGLISH VERSION)

BROKEN RELATIONS

We were going to tour all around Europe and for the first time we weren't performing as a support act, but we had our own shows. I never liked being a support band, but I know that this is how all bands begin their career. We would tour around Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and finally in the Balkan countries and the Mediterranean. In fact, all over Europe. And this was going to be our biggest tour, as the whole summer of 2017 was booked with gigs, even though we would have a small break aometime before and during Easter vacations. Thus, we left along with our friends too. Dina brought Marko along with her too, with whom she had a relationship back then. I can say I was really happy about them, as Marko and I had been friends since I was very young, so for me it was like I rediscovered my long-lost friend. The three of us indeed had a good time.

I believe that our performances were good, even though this wasn't our best tour ever. At least we gave off everything we could and we did this gracefully. We played our best songs and the girls' voices were splendid, as well as their whole performance onstage. Every time before the show, Dina would tell me: "Come on, I now you'll do great". We even played some film soundtracks, because we knew that people would love to listen to them in a progressive rock style.

Before Easter, our tour reached Germany. We performed in several cities all around Germany and we had even booked two appearances in Mannheim. Dina and Marko were already living together and had moved to Heidelberg, because Dina was doing her Master degree in archaeology. I had a background in archaeology myself, as my father was an ethnologist and I was deeply in love with the ancient Sea Peoples, therefore Dina, Vivian and I used to spend many hours having long discussions about ancient cultures, languages and scripts.

When we reached Heidelberg, Dina begged us to stay a bit more, as we had a few days free. There was an exhibition in Karlsruhe's archaeological museum, which was close to Heidelberg, about the Mycenaean culture. Dina's University offered her the chance to work as a tour guide for those days that the exhibition would take place. She would be completely silly, if she refused the offer, as she loved archaeology so much.

Thus, we also agreed to attend Dina's guided tours at the museum. And indeed, we had the chance to attend a guided tour about Mycenaen Greece, done by our friend, absolutely for free! Which band could ever have such an opportunity? Even though I could already speak German, the groups consisted of English speakers, so the other guys in the band could understand. She explained a lot of things about Linear B', about its decipherment by Michael Ventris, about Agamemnon's tomb and much more. She finally led us to the Throne Room, where you could find more than 400 artifacts, loaned from Greece and Cyprus, and among these you could find for sure Agamemnon's popular gold mask.

In that room, there was of course the great throne. The first time we saw it, Vivian whispered to me: "Wait until the guided tour is over and we will become Mycenaean queens".

Then, as I had some archaeological knowledge about that, I replied to her: "The correct term is anax". And then she burst into laughter.

When the visitors left, Vivian nestled herself in the throne and said: "Well, from now on I'm going to be your own anaxess".

"Anassa!", I corrected her. "Damn you, Vivian! You should learn how to speak Mycenaean Greek properly!".

At the meantime, Dina was rolling on the floor laughing with all this stupid things we were doing, but then she turned to me and said: "Come here, you wanna-be archaeologist. Do you know the word anax is written?".

"In Linear B'?", I asked her.

"Of course, what else?".

Surely I knew! Linear B' had impressed me so much, that I had unsuccessfully tried to learn its symbols. However, the only thing I could remember was how to write the word anax in Linear B', that its syllables were wa - na - ka and they were three symbols. I had a pen in my pocket and thus wrote on Dina's arm these symbols.