Four months in Poland

I’ve been meaning to write something, anything, about my experiences over the last, like, five months–holy shit, it’s been nearly five months since I left the US. Holy shit! I thought just now, sitting on the couch, wondering what I should do with myself, since my wife is traveling for a few weeks and I have essentially nothing going on that doesn’t involve walking and feeding and cuddling with my dog... Today marks four months in Poland. Exactly four months ago I was boarding a train from Berlin to Warsaw, completely oblivious to the fact that just a few short hours later, the train would break down and leave me and my fellow passengers stranded in the Polish countryside–in a place I would describe as as-middle-of-nowhere-as-you-can-get–baking in the summer heat wave that swept across Europe, before being absolutely dumpstered by a sudden downpour that caused us to be evacuated to a local fire station, away from the dilapidated brick apartment building in which we desperately sought…