A Long, Lonely, Adventurous Road

my traveling companion,
Katherine Elizabeth

Cześć!

One wild sojourn later, I write from Poznań, Poland where I just arrived a few hours ago after traveling across the continent. But I’m not here to see the Europe Cup matches, I’m afraid. I’m visiting a dear friend of mine, Zuzia, whom I have not seen in almost five years now. We met at the World Scout Jamboree 2007 in England, which in itself brings back a lot of really cool memories. That – of course – is another story altogether.

For the past three days, I have been taking the scenic and adventurous route from Naples to Poznań, traveling by bus, train, and foot across Europe with only my pack on my back. My mission has been to arrive in a way that spends the least amount of money, and I largely succeeded. I can also say that I had a few really nice stops along the way. It’s not as fast as it might have been hitchhiking, but it was certainly safer, more legal, and just as fun. I do think I’ll have to try hitchhiking some other time. I hear there are hitchhiking races in Europe, but that’s something for another time.

afternoon in Venice

early morning in Switzerland

Zurich

Now, when I was first talking about the possibility of coming, I did not understand why, but Zuzia told me to try to make an appointment to be in Poznań by June 21^st, the summer solstice. I agreed. Since I was leaving on the afternoon of the 18^th, I thought it might just be possible.

The first night, I had to pull off in Bologna, and I walked until I was far outside the city and in the countryside of western Emilia-Romania (not the part that was so devastated by the earthquakes recently). There, I lay down my tarp and stayed the night under the stars that had been guiding me north up to that point. The next morning, I awoke to the sunrise and a nice breakfast of cookies, cheese, and honey before setting off again. By that afternoon – with a few interesting local train stops and a lot more walking along the way – I was in Venice by 4:00 and then back in Milan by 8:40. I went north from there and was in Switzerland by that night.

The next day was a nice, long tour of eastern Switzerland by local train and bus, winding my way over the lovely mountains that I would someday rather hike than pass. For this trip, however, I could not take the slow path, because my deadline was already approaching fast. After losing a day between Naples and Milan, I would need to arrive in Poland within only a little over 30 hours. So all morning I did this until I arrived in Zürich after spending my lunchtime walking about Lucerne.

That was when I frighteningly discovered that I was suddenly out of money.

I put all my bills on a timed auto-pay system while I was out of the country, so everything lined up at just the moment I was arriving, and this was a fact had previously slipped my mind. I had made it as far as I had with only the money left over from Naples, and I had planned to get more at an ATM when I needed it. This was when I, while trying to get money for the next train, found that I didn’t have enough funds, and I realized what had happened. In conclusion, I was stuck in Zürich with only 20 Swiss franc cents.

It was at this point that I doubted just about everything. Poznań, where I needed to be the very next day, was over 800km (500 miles) away, and I wasn’t even sure if I could get that far by train in the time that I had left. Well, you know what strong men do when they need help. They pray. I had never in my life seen a chapel in a train station before, but this time it was quite a blessing.

The chaplain, after hearing my story, let me use the internet and I was able to get in touch with my father who saved the day. I will have to repay him when school starts again, but that, at least, is a time when I can afford to do so. I had some more wonderful talk with the chaplain, and spent some of my time there just in being thankful. With Dad’s help, I was in the Black Forest in Germany in no time at all, and that is where I finally spent the night.

The next morning, after a lovely (and early) sunrise tour of the little towns of the Scharzwald, I was on the ICE train to Berlin with new groceries and plenty of time to rest off the last two days. When I arrived in Berlin, I was able to get a very cheap and very lucky (in the middle of the EuroCup!) ticket to Poznań. After a three hour train ride, I made it on 21 June, 8:25pm. Just in time!

Zuzia and me, after I just arrived

Over the past five years, Zuzia and I have communicated over letters, email, Facebook, and the occasional Gmail chat, but we have never Skyped, so I have neither heard her voice nor seen her face for five years. Meeting a friend again after a time like that is quite a thing indeed. I was fifteen and she seventeen when we met, so although I know her well, I was meeting a brand new person for the first time in my life.

They have been telling me about various plans and ideas for activities over the course of my stay, so I think they intend to keep me in Poland until it’s time for me to go back home. But first, they took me out to the reason that they wanted me in Poznań so quickly…

There is a festival of lanterns on the summer solstice, a celebration of the longest day, shortest night, and the beginning of the summer. People gather near the river in the city in a big field and everyone gets a lamp. At around eleven o’clock at night (by agreement with the airport) everyone lights a lantern, makes a wish, and sends it off into the sky.

me, lighting my own lantern

the girls sending their wish off into the sky

It was so beautiful. All the lanterns fill the night air like a thousand flying stars. I felt like a little kid with wonder.

It was the perfect way to celebrate summer, and a perfect way to arrive. I’m so glad that I was able to make it in time. Afterward, they took me out to taste some of the city of Poznań and we made it back home very late. We will sleep late tomorrow, but I am glad to have finally made it to Poland.

Ania, me, and Zuzia

I’m Jonathon, and this is my life.

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