Opportunities for the taking

“Andrea, say “Szczebrzeszyn!” It was a game that my Polish friends invented; a shot of vodka followed by my attempt at the most difficult word they could think of. It's a little known fact that drinking vodka teaches one flawless Polish pronunciation. “Szczebrzeszyn” I repeated back. To my surprise, all the consonants flew through my teeth in the right order. “Wow, you sound Polish!” Pawel and everyone else was as dumbfounded as I was. Poles are proud of their ridiculously difficult language and like to believe no one else can speak it. It was an impressive party trick. The spirits possessed me. I was unstoppable. I didn't know what I was saying, but I knew it sounded good. Say “Plac Trzech Krzyzy." "Plac Trzzzzech Kshzzzzhzhzhzhy." Was that me, or did someone puncture a tire? The vodka method is not completely fool proof.

It was an unlikely place for a party. Lucy, Pawel, Piotr, Magda, and I, sat on wooden crates in the basement of Warsaw Central Station. Piotr worked at the station and had a key to a concrete storage room. It was a spot to escape the raw winter cold and enjoy our vodka, purchased from a 24 hour liquor store before we headed to the bar. Instead, we got comfortable and stayed for hours. Our secret hideout filled with cigarette smoke, laughter, and foreign words that I didn't understand, but words filled with meaning. Words I didn't need to understand. Words that connected me to the place I was in. Just before dawn, the five of us surfaced through the underground tunnels into city center, dazed.

Lucy was the first person I met when I arrived in Poland on a mission to find work as an English teacher and to discover my ancestral land. She found the idea of it all romantic and quickly adopted me as her friend. I recall her saying shortly after we first met, “You're not crazy like other Americans. Maybe it's because you're not from New York.” I took this as a compliment and accepted her offer to teach me Polish.

Warsaw is not beautiful on the surface. It's not to be seen, but to be felt. It was not love at first sight. It's cold, gray, and drab. There is an undertone of melancholy. It's a take some time to get to know you type of place. It has a soul. The night in the basement of the train station was the highlight of my two years living there. I saw the museums, the castles, and the festivals. I worked, tried the milk bars, rode the trams, and experienced the nightlife. But the night under the train station was the night I felt Warsaw.