Poznan via Berlin, with a Friend
The flights to Berlin (SFO-AMS-TXL) were uneventful. I don’t recall that leg of the trip much at all. It must have been pleasant - nothing to write home about, but nothing to post angrily to the two people on Facebook who might care either.
I do remember that I didn’t actually speak to anyone. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, it just wasn’t necessary. Thirteen or so hours total, lost in my own thoughts.
But, when I got to Berlin, things changed.
The idea was to fly to Berlin and take the train to Poznan. There is a direct flight from San Francisco to Poznan, but not on Delta or other Sky Team airlines, which are my preference. Also, Marissa and I had taken the same route a few years earlier, and though I was travelling alone this time, I thought it would be fun to re-trace our steps.
As I was saying, I arrived in Berlin feeling pretty good, but still tired and disoriented, as one would expect.
I made my way to baggage claim.
Then, of course, it happened. The experience every traveler hates: watching others pick up their bags as you wait longer and longer for yours. The number of bags shrinking, the number of bodies you recognize from your flight dwindling: the cute girl with the nose piercing, the smiley older lady and her sleepy husband, the squeaky clean family of five. All of them grab their bags and leave.
Eventually, there was a small, annoyed-looking group of us left. The belt stopped in two slow syllables, a loud clang and a thump, as if it were saying,
“Fuck. You.”
I knew immediately that I would be heading to Poland with just the clothes on my back.
If this happens to you, by all means head to the “lost bags” office at the airport, but call your airline while on the way. I did this and got immediate help, with the young man telling me that one load of luggage hadn’t made it onto the plane in Amsterdam and that it would arrive the next morning.
I told him I would be in Poland by then, assuming I made my train, which I was getting closer to missing. He immediately sent me a link to fill out the claim online, telling me I didn’t have to wait.
“It’s the exact system they will use if you wait in line at the airport, sir,” he told me, calmly, “and we will deliver them to you in Poland.”
Sure enough, I didn’t wait in line at the airport. Instead, I grabbed a cab for the train station, filling out the lost luggage report along the way.
Still, I had burned a lot of time waiting for my luggage, and that was just one of many issues I was now facing.
The Hauptbahnhof was packed. I hadn’t been in it for over three years and was unsure where to go for my tickets. I had no cash on hand. I was starving. I was sleep deprived.
I was in no shape to act quickly.
But I made it onto the train.
When Marissa and I had taken the train from Berlin to Poznan three years earlier, it was definitely Cold War vintage: slow, loud, drafty, hard seats, basic toilet, etc. This time, not so. It was modern and quiet and we zipped out of Berlin in comfortable, plush efficiency.
For food, our previous train had a young woman pushing a rickety cart carrying stale looking snacks and scalding, flavorless tea. This train had a dining car. I had never eaten in a train’s dining car. I was still starving. Now was the time.
I left my then empty compartment and found the dining car, where a kind-but-serious looking Polish woman sat me down and handed me a menu in English.
“Dziękuję,” I told her, which raised a brief smile on her face. (Always, always learn the word for “thank you” in whatever country you are travelling to.)
I opened the menu fully expecting to find maybe a hamburger, definitely a sausage, possibly a salad option. That is to say, I was not expecting much.
Instead, I was greeted with a list that would make the most sophisticated San Francisco hot spot proud: roast duck breast in a wine reduction, wild boar sausage with spaetzle, sous vide pork tenderloin in a cream sauce. All made on the train. All to be paid for in Zloty, meaning it would cost me a quarter of what it would in Germany (and about a tenth of what it would in San Francisco.)
I went with the pork tenderloin. And before dinner? Yes, a nice, cold Polish beer. They had it on draught!
Oh my, did my spirits improve. Until the exhaustion kicked in.
I wasn’t even finished with dinner when the drowsiness enveloped me. The comforting food, the beer, the early-spring sunlight falling on my back. It was all I could do to pull myself up and make my way back to my seat.
I still had 90 minutes to go to Poznan. If I fell asleep, I might miss my stop and end up in Warsaw, How would I stay awake?
When I re-entered my compartment I saw that a small, friendly-looking man was now sitting across from me.
I sat down carefully, but heavily nonetheless. I was losing the battle against closing my eyes.
“Could you help me with this?” He asked, pointing to an antique-looking suitcase.
“Of course,” I said, and stood up to place it on the luggage rack high above his head.
“Where are you from?” said the small man, in rather good English.
I had spoken so little in the past 18 hours it took me a moment.
“Uh? Oh, I live near San Francisco, in Cali…”
“Yes, California, I know.” he said. “Everyone knows San Francisco.”
“Ha, yes, I guess that’s true. My name is Matthew.”
“Nice to meet you, Matthew, my name is…”
And for the next 90 minutes I heard a remarkable story.
He was young when the Nazis arrived. He survived. Most of his family did not.
He learned Russian, as well as English and German. During the Cold War, he did a lot of black market commerce, mostly with and at the behest of Soviet government ministers. After the Cold War, he opened one of the earliest - and successful - restaurant chains in Central Europe.
We talked and talked. I grew more excited with each story. The only other person in our compartment was a Polish woman I would guess was in her 50’s. She looked unhappy, annoyed even. And with each gasp I let out or every time I said, “no, really?” she looked over at us with barely concealed contempt.
As the sun drew closer to the horizon outside our quickly moving train, he told me about corresponding with Steven Spielberg, after seeing Schindler’s List. He wanted Mr. Spielberg to know that some important details were missing from the movie. One of his few surviving relatives had been one of the Schindlerjuden and he had important letters from her with details that hadn’t been published.
“Mr. Spielberg said that if ever he made a sequel he would let me know. But come on, who would make a sequel to a movie like that?”
That comment made me laugh out loud. Who would indeed?
“I was thinking a documentary…”
…and just like that I realized the train had stopped and through the loudspeaker the one word I could catch was “Poznan….”
I looked at the woman and asked,
“Poznan?”
“Tak, Poznan, tak!” she said loudly, giving us both a look that said she thought we were morons.
“Oh, I am so sorry, but I’ve got to get off, this is my stop.” I told him, as I stood, grabbing my backpack.
“This is Poznan? Already? It’s my stop, too!”
I grabbed his suitcase. We smiled at the angry woman, who was grumbling something foul as we squeezed past, and waded our way through the throng of oncoming passengers. We got off the train only a moment before it began slipping back out of the station.
I set his suitcase down and asked if he had transportation. He said he did, that his son was coming to pick him up.
We shook hands and I told him thank you for spending the time with me and for sharing these stories from his life.
Suddenly he seemed shy, and he merely smiled and said thank you, looking down at his feet.
We parted and I made my way up and out of the station. The hotel was about half a mile walk and I was in the mood to stretch my legs. But, being by this point completely sleep-deprived and disoriented, I got lost on my way out.
Finally, I made it out the main door of the station. As I headed in the direction of the hotel, I saw them at the curb. My old friend and his son getting into their car.
I walked on, in the chilled Polish air, not completely believing what a day I had just had.
