The train pulled into Warsaw late at night. I was supposed to meet someone from couchsurfing.org at the station but she never materialized. Either she didn’t show up or we missed each other on the platform. Neither she nor I were able to raise the other on the telephone. Finally, I tried calling Alexi, my host in Helsinki, who mentioned he was going to be in Warsaw at the same time I was. In short order, I had instructions to get a taxi and head for a bar nearby.
The taxi driver didn’t have much of an idea of what I was saying and I had less of an idea of what he was saying. He dropped me off at a night club that turned out to be about a kilometer across a dark park from where I was supposed to be. Another call to Alexi pointed me in the right direction but just as he was telling me to be careful, the phone cut off. I was out of minutes and had no way to recharge until I reached Germany. Walking through the dark park at night I had chance to reflect upon my peculiar circumstances and how they had come about. A little more than a year prior I had set out into the unknown, living in Tunisia and Germany, and traveling to many countries along the way. Now here I was in the middle of a park in Warsaw at night wearing drab clothing and carrying a large backpack.
Several figures running toward my position roused me out of contemplation. It was Alexi and several of his Warsaw-based friends. He and they were all very concerned for my wellbeing as the park is well-known for muggings, robberies, and murders. Before long they had taken me into a bar at the edge of the park. I ordered a beer and sat down next to a German woman for some pleasant conversation.
After the second beer, I asked the bartender for some water. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I momentarily turned my gaze from the bartender pouring the water to the person who tapped me. When I turned back, the water was in front of me. I took a sip and promptly blacked out. The next full memory I have is of waking up in an unfamiliar apartment on an unfamiliar bed.
From what I’ve been able to piece together from the other people who were there and from my fractured memories, shortly after I took a sip of the water, I put my head on the table and spit up water and a little beer. The other people thought nothing of it for a while. After some time, Alexi took note and, along with others in the group, pulled me and my things out of the bar. I vaguely remember sitting at a table outside and trying to eat a kebab. Then I remember being in a taxi and being told to hold the vomit in. Next I remember a door to an apartment building. Alexi told me that they had taken me to sit outside the bar, tried to feed me some kebab, decided it wasn’t helping, put me in a taxi, and taken me to someone’s apartment in the suburbs of Warsaw. There, I managed to climb six flights of stairs under my own power and was put to bed with a large jug of water.
The next day I regained consciousness at around noon. My body and brain were very unhappy with life. I had a little food, drank some water, and started feeling a bit better. Upon further analysis with Alexi and our Polish host, it appears that I was probably drugged. The haircut that I had received in Latvia a few days before had been from an ethnic Russian hair dresser. My clothes and backpack looked as if I could have been a Russian drug runner. Evidently, the bar tender or someone else at the bar thought that I had a backpack full of drugs and was going to drug and then kill me for the goods. It’s lucky that I had friends close by who were able to get me out of that sticky situation! For that reason, I am forever indebted to Alexi.
The day after being drugged in the apartment. Alexi had his hand cut a night or two prior when someone had tried to mug him for his mobile phone. He successfully got the phone back but not without getting hurt.
Downtown Warsaw.
A piece of tank track from World War II.
Alexi picking something up.
Some fellow couchsurfers the next afternoon.
Also of note is the meeting of Dominika, a wonderful CSer who I have stayed in contact with over the years. Warsaw wasn’t all that bad. I just had a bad night.