Goodbye Poland, for now... (Part 2)

So now its time for the rest of the story.

And this half begins out in the middle of Poland somewhere, among wheat fields and forests, and ends with tear-stained cheeks in a train to Berlin.

After I slept throughout the duration of the 3 hour drive into the Polish country, our crammed car pulled into a grocery store just outside of Lubikowo and we all jumped out to stretch our legs and buy a few last minute food items.

The grocery store was yet another one of the unique experiences I had in Poland. The only brand names I recognized in the store were "Lays" and "Kellogs"-- other than that all of the food was strange and new, but much of it I wish I could transport to America. One of my favorite discoveries has been a soft shortbread cookie with jam in the middle that's covered with chocolate. The jam can be any flavor under the sun-- from raspberry to orange to strawberry to grape-- and they are chewy and gooey and fun to eat! I oo-ed and ahh-ed over the eclectic food selection and then we bought sausages, bacon, and ketchup for dinner before loading back into the car for the last 10 minutes of our journey.

So when Pawel first told me that his family's chalet was very small and very old fashioned and very in the middle of nowhere, I didn't fully realize that he actually meant it was very small, very old fashioned, and very in the middle of nowhere

But I loved it so much! It was just like cabin camping. We were in a small building with a "kitchen" the size of a closet and a "bedroom" the size of two closets, and there was no plumbing and no electricity. Although years ago when the chalet was first built it was the only one in the forest by the lake, now it has innumerable neighbors that consist of anything from tents to campers to bigger chalets and even homeless men. The toilet was the scariest part of all-- it was an old, wooden outhouse with only half of a door sitting on a hill among dozens of other outhouses a little ways away from the chalet. As Pawel told me his family's outhouse was the first one there, but now all the newbies are trying to crowd it out.

The view of the lake from the chalet had also been obscured by a neighboring camper, but all I had to do was walk down a little path and I could behold an absolutely breathtaking sight of the water. Granted, this was also where we were supposed to take a bath, but since the water was freezing and I had no interest in catching hypothermia and dying just yet I never bathed while I was there. I have never not showered for two days until this weekend and I hope I will never have to do that again. I probably never smelled so bad in my life! Perhaps you didn't want to hear that, but at least you didn't have to smell it ;)

The chalet! Hey Bartek! ;)

The side, through those windows is the bedroom

Pawel filling up water from the lake!

The gorgeous lake :)

Although it wasn't glamorous, it was definitely an incredible experience! Besides, Pawel and his family are working on renovating the chalet (complete with a new bathroom!) at the very moment that I'm typing this. But I'm glad I got to see it right before its momentous makeover. There is something about living that closely to nature that just can't be beat :)

Well as soon as we tumbled out of the car everyone got to work making the chalet liveable for the next ten days. I wanted to get in on the action but ended up standing in the middle of a whirlwind of activity watching helplessly as the family settled everything in like clockwork. The car was unloaded, the two futons in the bedroom were pulled out and quickly made up with sheets and blankets, a table and cabinet was pulled out of the kitchen onto the covered porch and then creativity was manifested at its greatest. I watched as a sink top was placed on top of the cabinet, a PVC pipe was attached to the drain and led off of the porch into a ditch by the chalet, and a plastic jug with a spout at the bottom and the top half of a plastic bottle cut off and stuck into the top as a funnel served as the faucet. Several large jugs were filled with water from the lake, poured into the jug and voila-- you have a sink! I was very impressed ;)

All of the food was unloaded onto a table on the porch and just left there-- the air was cold enough at night that it worked well as a refrigerator. Of course that didn't work quite so well for me, who never took off my leggings, blue jeans, socks, boots, shirt, sweatshirt, and jacket the whole time I was there. (Alright so I guess it did warm up during the days, but most of the time I was trying to curl myself up into a ball whenever possible just to get my limbs to share its body heat with one another.) But after settling everything in that night the small George Foreman grill was lit, the sausages and bacon were loaded onto it, and the table was set with vegetables and bread. Another one of my new favorite Polish foods are cucumbers that look like pickles, but don't soak in vinegar so they're not. They soak in a jar with garlic and some other leafy looking stuff, and they're so crunchy and juicy I couldn't stop eating them!

Another marvelous thing about family in Poland is that they will make sure you absolutely never go hungry. You may remember how much food I've already eaten on this day from my last post, but that certainly wasn't going to be the end of it. Around 9:00 that night the sausages were finally ready, and with candlesticks lit on the table we all sat around it to enjoy a yummy, greasy supper. Ms. Monika served homemade wine and later in the evening the wine was replaced by Malibu and milk. It was perfectly cozy to sit snuggled up around the tiny table on the porch with the candlelight glowing, my belly settling, the radio playing, and my Polish family surrounding me. One by one Ms. Monika and then Ola and Bartek trickled off to bed, but again Pawel and I couldn't make ourselves go to sleep. Even though we had gotten only 3 hours the night before, Pawel kept reminding me that this is Europe-- I can't sleep in Europe! And he was too right ;) So we stayed outside talking for a long time talking, and by about midnight finally decided to be responsible and go to bed. After I had changed into my leggings and gym shorts I crept into the bedroom where the three "beds" were pretty much all touching each other. I slept on the futon with Ola on the far side of the room, Ms. Monika had the air mattress in the middle, and Bartek and Pawel shared the futon on the other side. I curled up in my warm blankets and fell asleep content to be one of the family.

View from the chalet

Yumm ;D

Ola is grillin like a boss ;)

The remains of a scrumptious dinner ;)

Chilling (quite literally) at the table!

The next morning us kids enjoyed a niiiice loooong sleep...until 10:30 a.m. ;) That's 10 and a half hours of rejuvenation, and with the sun shining brightly I jumped up ready to go! Okay so maybe that's an exaggeration; I was slow in unwrapping myself from all of my blankets and feeling the rush of cold air, but once I forced myself up and outside I realized it wasn't too chilly after all. After braving the bathroom, using the review mirror of the car to put in my contacts, brushing my teeth in a ditch beside the house and combing baby powder through my hair to break up the grease, I was ready to start the day! Ms. Monika of course served us a positively scrumptious breakfast of leftover sausage, vegetables, and egg casserole and afterwards we four kids set off exploring. I wanted to see the land so we took the path through the forests and the fields and basked in the warmth of the sunlight.

When we got back Pawel tried to convince me to go swimming in the lake with him, but I wouldn't budge. I told him that if I had a warm sauna to leap into afterwards I would do it, but other than that jumping into a freezing lake with no warm haven to run to sounded like a good way to discreetly do away with the American. He went swimming anyway and managed to survive, then the four of us piled into the car and drove to a nearby village for ice cream and a walk through a beautiful church garden. Poland is Catholic from head to toe and all of their cathedrals are absolutely magnificent! The path in the garden took its walkers through monuments of the 14 stations of the cross and we strolled through this, enjoying our ice cream cones and the serenity of the moment.

Upon getting back to the chalet the three others decided it was time to teach me some Polish card games. I have forgotten the name of the game we played, but after Pawel explained the rules to me I realized it was essentially the same thing as "Uno," only with a real deck of cards instead of with the manufactured game. We pulled out the cookies, leftover peach crumble cake, and sunflower seeds and got down to business. Pawel, who is always so good and kind, was explaining the rules to me as we went and kindly encouraged me to lay down a card that would make him draw 5 cards instead of laying down one that would let him off the hook. "The point is to attack me," he said, so getting too greedy at the prospect of making my opponent suffer I laid down the red king like he told me too.

Then he laid down a red king, and said I had to draw 11 cards.

The clever cousin tricked me, and boy, now it was ON.

For the rest of the game I showed him absolutely no mercy, and we all four had a competitive card playing banter going on, but that is really the only way to play cards. If you don't do mean and evil things to your opponents and they don't do mean and evil things to you, it isn't really playing cards, its just being cordial. So we had fun and laughed a lot, and Bartek won followed by Ola so that it was down to me versus Pawel. The game would have gone on forever I'm pretty sure if we hadn't eventually decided we were both winners and moved on to other things! (Ola tried to convince us that we weren't both winners, we were both losers because we both came in last. But we told her nope, we're both winners!)

The first thing we did was undertake a mission Bartek and Pawel decided we needed to accomplish. When the family had been at the chalet the week before, they had dumped all of their leftover food into a kettle for a homeless man who asked they leave it for his dog.

Well the dog never got the food because the kettle was still sitting by the chalet full of all kinds of wonderful things and it was starting to smell terrible. Bartek and Pawel grabbed a shovel and went up the hill to a field of wheat where they dug a very deep hole to bury the contents of the pot in. Next came the challenge of getting the pot to the hole, then getting the contents of the pot into the hole, and many lovely things happened next. Bartek tore a plastic bag in half to use as gloves to carry the pot up the hill and set the entire thing into the hole. Pawel and I knew the metal pot didn't need to get buried in the earth, so we took it upon ourselves to actually dump the contents out of the kettle into the hole.

We each grabbed the handle with the plastic bag and dumped it over, and I remembered to hold my nose but I forgot to close my eyes and there was little I could do to close my ears.

Instead of being so cruel as to describe the pot's expulsion to you in full detail, I'll just say that it looked and sounded like the pot had thrown up and the contents of said throw up most certainly do not deserve to be immortalized through the written word. I actually screamed as I saw (and heard) the delectable goop ooze into the earth and it was a long time before I was willing to open my eyes again. Afterwards we all felt sick to our stomachs and desperately needed something to get our minds off of what we had just seen and done, so we went to the chalet, grabbed a couple bottles of beer, some cups, and a bag of potato chips and trekked down to one of the docks on the lake. There we divided up the beer between the four of us and sat gazing at the water and crunching on yummy, salty goodness as we let ourselves forget about our sickening adventure. Somehow we began talking about words that rhyme in English, and I pointed out that nothing rhymes with orange, and then we started talking about space for some reason, and a strange story about discovering a planet and giving it a name that rhymes with orange-- such as Zoragne-- came to be and again we cracked ourselves up.

The beautiful lake :)

Relaxation at its finest :)

This guy HAD to be freezing

Then we realized it was time for some real food and Ms. Monika had left us hours ago to head back home. So we were on our own for dinner but we managed to warm up the leftover cabbage rolls to chow down on. By this time it was getting later into the evening and we were expecting Aunt Jola and her husband Klaus to arrive at anytime with all of the new furnishings and fixings for the chalet. While we were waiting the four of us took the old beds out of the chalet (okay, so Bartek and Pawel took the beds out and Ola and I half helped and half watched) and then we got a call from Aunt Jola informing us they had gotten lost.

We didn't have any car of our own with which to go find them, but they were in a nearby village so we set off down the path through the forests again heading in their direction. Along the way Ola jokingly drew signals in the sand to point them in the right direction when suddenly, up ahead, we saw a truck coming down the road. The four of us turned around and dashed back down the path towards the chalet so that we could be Aunt Jola and Klaus there and succeeded in doing just that! Aunt Jola gave her niece and nephew and then me a big hug and then the fun began: we opened up the back of their trailer to pull out all of the new furnishings and accessories for the chalet and it felt just like Christmas. Like when my grandparents would come to my house on Christmas Eve and Marie and I would open up the back of their van to pull out the multitude of shiny presents-- it never seemed to end and the presents would just keep getting bigger and shinier!

Well this trailer had everything in it from a kitchen cabinets to a new bunk bed to buckets of food to a darts game. Again I wanted to help very badly, but with the enormous language barrier (Klaus spoke German and a little bit of English, Aunt Jola spoke Polish and German, Pawel spoke Polish, English, and a little bit of German, Ola and Bartek spoke Polish and a little bit of English, and Michelle spoke English and could say "danke") and the hectic rush to get everything settled in before dark there was little I could do but uselessly stand and watch. Not only that, but Aunt Jola kept showering me with gifts-- she gave me chocolate, a bottle of wine, a new purse...and I had come empty handed! If I learned one thing from this trip I learned to never visit one's family empty handed, because all they will do is give and give and give and it feels pretty rotten when all you can do is take and give nothing in return. Aunt Jola told me (via our translator Pawel) just to be happy that we could all be together at this moment, though, and I took her advise. Because I couldn't have been happier to be a part of the chaotic but exciting family bustle.

Eventually the guys had finished constructing the new bunk bed inside the bedroom where a new sofa sleeper had also found its place, and the porch and kitchen were stacked with all of the new cabinets, counters, and food. By 10:00 we were settling in around the table (which had to be moved into the yard in front of the cabin) eating sandwiches and feeling happily exhausted. After Aunt Jola and Klaus headed off to bed we four kids stayed outside with the glow of a lantern on the table and the moon as our only light talking and trying to exchange jokes through the Polish/English language barrier. By this time Ola and Bartek were more comfortable talking to me in English and I was desperately wishing this didn't have to be my last night with all of them in Poland. Even though I was freezing and a hot shower would have been the equivalent of heaven at this point, I still didn't want to leave my family-- who had now become my dear friends-- behind. And I wanted to watch the transformation of the chalet as well as the rest of the new furniture was installed and the bathroom was built.

Dinner with the family! We are tired, we are hungry, we are cold, but we are happy :)

But alas, all good things must come to an end. 

The next morning Klaus and Aunt Jola drove me to the train station in Frankfurt (by Oder). Pawel rode with us, but I had to say goodbye to Ola and Bartek at the cabin. 

We rode most of the way in silence until I decided I really wanted to try to break down what little of the language barrier I could and have a conversation with Aunt Jola since she had done-- and still was doing-- so much for me. I asked Pawel if he would mind translating if I wanted to talk to her and of course he was more than happy to, so Aunt Jola and I talked to each other each in our own languages then looked to Pawel for the translation. I learned about her schooling and her move to Germany, she asked about my family and we found out both of us had been to California before. It was wonderful to be able to talk to her, and when I look back at it I forget that we hadn't actually been speaking the same language!

But then we had arrived at the train station, and I knew it would be time to say my last goodbyes soon. The panic was starting to settle in as I realized how completely unprepared I was for the upcoming trip. I had planned how I was going to get into Poland down to the last gritty detail, but I had put absolutely no thought into how I was going to get out again. I quickly had to pull out my laptop and pay for internet access so I could figure out which airport I was flying out of in Berlin while Klaus and Aunt Jola waited in line for me. They got to the ticket counter just as I figured out my flight and I had to run up to pay for my ticket with Klaus doing all of the talking since I was now in a German speaking land. I got my ticket, was told where to get off the train and at what time and then was informed I would have 6 minutes to get to the bus station and catch a bus for the airport (all in German and broken English of course). 

Waving bye from the platform!

But I was scared out of my mind. For the first time in all of my traveling over the past four weeks I was petrified. I wasn't really sure if I was getting on the right train or if it was going in the right direction. Then I wasn't really sure if I would be able to find the bus station once I got off the train, and if it would take me to the right place at the airport. And I knew that I all had to help me was my very poor and broken German. I wasn't going to have Pawel anymore. I had gotten so used to having him by my side as friend, comforter and translator these past four days that it had completely spoiled me, and the thought of being on my own again terrified me. I hugged Klaus, Jola, and finally Pawel for the last time. I sat down on the train and tried to ask the woman next to me if this train was going the direction I thought I was going because I couldn't read any of the signs around me. But of course she couldn't understand me so the guy sitting behind me tried to help me, and soon Pawel had run onto the train and asked "Are you okay, Michelle?" I nodded and tried to say yes, I'm fine, but already the tears were in my throat and burning my eyes as he walked back off the train again.

I wasn't fine. I didn't want to say goodbye, and I didn't know where this train was taking me. But Pawel had been telling me constantly for the past four days "Be courageous!", and if there was anytime to put that mantra to use it was now. 

I heard the whistle blow and then Klaus, Aunt Jola and Pawel began waving at me from the platform. I knew the train was about to pull away and I began to frantically wave at them too. I leaned into the window as the train pulled away, waving at them for as long as I could, and I watched long enough to be able to see them stop waving, turn around, and head down the stairs. Then the tears unexpectedly began to flow and my body shook with sobs.

First I had to leave Poland, and soon I would be leaving London, and then Europe would be behind me altogether. Not only that, but I knew it would be a long time before I would see Pawel and the rest of his (and my) dear family again. Leaving Pawel at the end of only 4 days felt like leaving a best friend. But I promised I would be back soon, and I will be. Goodbye never has to be forever if you don't want it to be.

Once my tears had slowed down I pulled out the notebook where Pawel and I had begun recording our "Adventures" on the bus to Lubiaz two days before and finished them out. Then the train pulled into Berlin, I got off and easily found my bus, got on and easily got to the airport, and before I knew it I was back in London. I rode the Piccadilly line for an hour back to Waterloo Station and then I was home, safely walking through the doors of King's College.

But I was a different person then when I last walked out of those doors to board a bus for Scotland. I had spent four days in a country so unlike America where nobody but Pawel really spoke my language enough to communicate with me. I had conquered things that terrified me, but I had made it through just fine and grew significantly through the traveling trials. And I had met someone who will be my friend for as long as I live, and that is the best part of all.

I told Pawel that he always said "You're the lucky one," and he was right, because now I know him. I'm honored to be able to call him family, and beyond blessed to have met him and now get to call him friend.  

And to anyone who is still wondering where the "life changing" part of this is, I would say to you to go back to the very first post about Poland and read it all again. Because that's it. It's all there. It was the experience as a whole and every single wonderful bit of it that changed my life, and now I can honestly say that because of my adventure in Poland I will never be the same. 

P.S: I still have one of my sunflowers, and it still smells like the earth of Poland. 

And I will have it and hold it dear for as long as I live.