Forget Maps, Remember Everything

I'm not sure you have experienced the feeling of not brushing your teeth for over twenty-four hours, but it is a feeling I would not wish upon my worst enemy. Unfortunately, the only thing worse than that feeling is sitting at an abandoned train stop in Poland for over three hours. Did I mention it is late October? In Poland? And that my teeth are so gritty I could probably scratch the yellow off with my fingernail? It was an extraordinary series of events that lead me here, to this train platform. Let's rewind a little. Four days before, my two roommates and I embarked on the train-hopping fall break of our dreams. 5 countries, 10 days. We were going to Prague, Auschwitz, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London. Not even half-way through, and this trip was not quite what we had dreamed of. They don't really tell you, but Auschwitz isn't very easy to get to. While looking back, we should have known that the biggest death camp of the Holocaust wouldn't be a walk in the park, we didn't realize it while we were literally walking through the park outside of it. After the 6 hour train ride from Prague, we walked the thirty minute walk to the perimeter of the city of Osweicim. Shocking the three of us, there are apartment buildings over-looking the walls of the concentration camp on every side. Our solemn wandering through the bunkers ended at closing time. We ended up back at the train station at 7:30 in the evening, and as if the negativity had followed us outside of the infamous gates, our luck changed quickly from bad to worse. Through a series of unfortunate series of train switches, we ended up in Trezbinia. Let me just tell you, if you really want to get to know someone too well, put yourself with them on an empty train platform at midnight after you haven't brushed your teeth for over 24 hours. Life will never be the same. You will find that your only friends are the one scarf you happened to mindlessly slip into the bottom of your backpack and that stray cat who keeps peeing dangerously close to your leg. Luckily, and obviously, we were able to finally escape the dreadful train tracks, and shockingly enough, Polish train attendants are fairly nice to three young, English-speaking girls who don't have reservations for the night train that they snuck onto. Without a doubt, the very first thing that we did when we finally were on that train was all shove ourselves into one train bathroom, toothbrushes in hand, ready to scrub away every last gritty memory of Poland.