I spent a great deal of time in the city of Wielun, Poland that’s located a few hours outside of Warsaw. Wielun is a smaller city with an estimated population of about 25,000, and it’s notable for being subject to an air raid by the German Army on September 1, 1939. The town itself housed no military personal, devastatingly making all of the casualties strictly civilian at the time. A large amount of my Polish roots can be found in this city, where I am fortunate enough to have a great number of relatives who were willing to show me around during my time there. While the city itself is relatively easy to walk through in roughly two hours, nothing at all could have prepared me for the few hours that I would spend on my own.

It was the day before I was scheduled to head out to Germany with some family members of mine. I wanted to visit a Kantor so that I could exchange some money for Euros, and remembering where the location was earlier (in the towns “central” or “downtown” in America) I knew that it would not be a very long walk. Many of the apartment structures here are still reminiscent of Poland’s time under communist occupation, and each housing “block” tends to be marked by a number. Easy enough, right?

I simply remembered the number to my Uncles apartment block and set off towards the downtown area, of course having to first walk into a convince store to ask first in which direction I should go. For me personally, one of the easiest ways that I’ve found to navigate through parts of Europe are to maneuver yourself around specific landmarks and simply retrace your steps from there. One thing that I did not count on as I made my way towards the Kantor, was to take note of the massive storm that was quickly approaching.

By the time I made it to the Kantor to exchange some currency, the towns weather took a literal 180 from a sunny summer day to loud thunder, frequent lighting flashes, and pouring rain. I wasn’t too worried at this point though, because all I had to do was simply walk back the way I came. I ventured out towards the same path I came down from, all the while trying to maneuver in between alleyways and hopping into some stores for brief shelter. I don’t remember the exact point, but at some moment I lost track. I looked at all of the numbered apartment structures, knowing that my Uncle’s was number 7. I saw 1-15 and then it seemed to randomly jump from 20-32. I circled around for the next half hour completely drenched, irritated at the confusing markers, and cursing every move that I had made. I had no service overseas on my cell phone, which left me completely immobile as I could not access any internet nearby as well.

I made the mistake of not getting the street address of my Uncle’s apartment, yet I decided to just take a picture of an apartment block number and simply explain to someone that I needed to find the one marked 7. I must have asked about a dozen or so people with varying results. I walked into stores and stopped people on the streets who were more than willing to help me, yet the language barrier got in the way for some and I was surprised to find that others did not even know where the location was when said that I needed to find “block number 7.” Little did I know that I had made a huge error considering that each block in the city was not the only one with that individual number. Meaning that there could be multiple buildings marked “Apartment Block No. 1,” yet the way to differentiate them is by what street they are located on.

I was heading towards the local police station for help, which I kept as my last resort after I had been out for three hours by then. On the way there, I saw a guy in front of me with headphones on who seemed to be around my age. I stopped and asked if he could assist me, which he was more then glad to do so. He told me that his name was Michal and that I was in fact the first American he's even seen in Wielun. He informed me of my error with the apartment block numbers, and through some trials of our own (that included contacting a cousin of mine to find the street address), he led me back to my Uncle’s apartment complex. I added him on Facebook and as soon as I got back to Florida, I sent him some small native gifts from my state.

This was perhaps one of the few times in my life where I’ve ever felt so vulnerable. I was stripped of any resource to contact anyone who I had known, and I was in a place where I could not decipher any street signs much as less communicate with anyone around me. I wondered that night as to what would have happened had I not run into Michal in the way that I had. As daunting as those few hours were, looking back I now know that I would always have a story to tell of the experience.