God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day.
I arrived in Poland around nine o'clock on a Friday evening. But I really don't know the exact time. It was dark, so dark outside and I could only see trees whipping by on the right side of the small shuttle bus and I could feel the bumps and dips on the asphalt leading me to Kolobrzeg. Around 11:00pm, I found myself waiting outside a train station in Szczecin, Poland. I was waiting for Tomasz, the director of School by the Sea; he was going to pick me up and drive me the rest of the two hours to Kolobrzeg. I waited for what seemed like ages until finally I realized I had a problem. I had to go to the bathroom. A 21-year-old woman, alone in the middle of the night on a weekend with three suitcases at an all but abandoned train station and no knowledge of the local language...yes, it was a problem.
I rolled the suitcases inside the train terminal, walked around a bit, saw a sign that had a simple "WC" (for "Water Closet"; apparently, Britain is not the only country that calls them this), and headed that direction. When I got to the door, I sighed. A sign stated simply "2 zl," which meant I could not use the restroom unless I had 2 zlotys to pay the "guard" sitting in a small room between the men's and women's restroom. I had no zlotys. All I had was a little over 5 Euros (change from my bus fare) and 100 US dollars which was my emergency fund for my time in Poland "just in case." I walked back to the main doors of the train station and prayed that Tomasz would arrive soon.
As I stood beside the doors, looking out into the night and trying to stay inconspicuous along the wall, a young man approached me. This man must have been about 25-30 years old, but the way he moved and the way the lines were drawn across his face made me second-guess myself. As he moved towards me, I looked around me and saw no one. Yes, he was headed directly towards me. My breathing quickened and I swallowed hard. When the man was only a few feet away from me, he motioned with his hands and mumbled something in Polish and when he stopped talking, I knew he was waiting for an answer. Not knowing what he said and not knowing how to explain this to the man, I said the first thing I could think of (in English): "I am sorry, but I don't speak Polish." The man looked surprised, but not put off. He once again motioned with his hands and used the same string of words. And again, I told him in English that I didn't speak Polish. I could feel the perspiration roll down my forehead. It was cold outside but at that moment, I felt quite warm. I had no idea what this man wanted. We stood there for a few moments, just staring at each other and the couple people that were in the station with us began to turn in our direction, probably trying to figure out what was going on.
The man looked intently at me and then used a different string of words. This time, he pointed at me, at my lips, and then at himself and his lips. Back and forth, he pointed to us both in turn and repeated the second string of words. I was growing even more confused. Not knowing what else to do, I said yet a third time, "I am sorry, but I don't speak Polish," and slowly walked away. The man stopped pointing, stopped speaking, and watched as I turned, rolled my luggage behind me and walked out the train station doors into the night.
My first day in Poland...who knew how much I would miss it when I left?
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