This is a true story.

This past year, I studied abroad in Milan, Italy. I spent 10 and a half insane months in Europe, and it was the greatest adventure of my life. Within that grand adventure is perhaps one of the greatest stories of my life, and believe me, my life has been nothing less than interesting.

During our winter break in January, as I was cooped up in my dorm room on a pizza and Netflix binge, I received a Facebook message from one of my very best friends. He told me he was visiting Salzburg, Austria with his university choir for a week of performances and said he really wanted to see me. By this time, I had been in Italy for nearly five months and had not seen anyone from home. I told him I would travel up there and visit him without hesitation, giving no thought to the fact that I would be missing a full week of classes directly before our mid-term exams. I bought a bus ticket to Salzburg, and when that Saturday morning came, I was the first one in the bus station, ready to go.

My bus route there and back was the same. Depart from Milan, cross the border at Switzerland, travel to the German border, cross the German border, arrive at Munich and switch to a different bus that crossed the Austrian border and arrived directly in Salzburg. The ride up through the snow covered terrain of Switzerland was beautiful and uneventful. By 11 p.m. that night, I arrived at my hostel.

Salzburg is a beautiful place surrounded by the Bavarian Alps. It's known for being the birthplace of Mozart and the location for the filming of "The Sound of Music." On Monday, I explored the city with one of my best friends, Ben, and our buddy Chris. We spent the entire day trolling throughout the city and up into the surrounding hills. It was a cold morning that turned into a warm day. I remember having to remove my jacket and drape it over my arm due to the heat.

After a long day together, I finally bid my friends adieu and arrived back at my hostel around two in the morning. Before I enter any place, I have a habit of doing a pocket check, meaning I usually quickly pat all my pockets to make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be. For example, my iPhone is always in my front left pocket, my wallet in my front right and so on. Front left, check. Front right, check. Back left and back right, check. Both coat side pockets, check. It was when I got to my left interior breast coat pocket that I froze. I expected to feel a rectangular booklet there but instead felt nothing but air. That rectangular booklet…was my passport.

My passport that was supposed to be in that pocket but wasn’t. I did another pocket check…nothing. I took off my jacket and turned out every pocket, but when my worst fears were confirmed, I had a moment of panic. I walked calmly into my hostel and the instant I was out of sight of the front desk clerk I flew up the stairs. I entered my dark room and quietly began rustling through my duffle bag and backpack doing my best not to wake the other three travelers sleeping in the room. After about 10 minutes, one of the Asian girls rose from her bed and shot me the nastiest look (to be fair, it was almost 2:30 a.m. by that point). I comically grabbed all my gear and went out into the hall. I emptied all the contents of my duffle bag and backpack onto the hallway floor, praying to whatever deity might be out there that I did not put it in my jacket pocket earlier that morning but instead left it in my gear. Needless to say, my fervent requests to the universe went unanswered.

I sat there on the hallway floor retracing every step I took that day. It was many, many steps…too many steps. We were all over the city, literally, and also into the surrounding hillside. If it was in the hills, there was no chance of us finding it and I did not want to lose the entire week with the only friend I had seen (and would see) for many months looking for my passport. Then I remembered, my jacket. I had taken my jacket on and off all day. It had probably slipped out of its pocket at some point.

I tried not to panic at the enormity of my problem. I decided I needed to come up with a game plan and tried to convince myself it could have slipped out at any of the three extended stops we made throughout the day (a kebab shop, a hookah lounge and a restaurant). Maybe I would get lucky.

On Tuesday, I called and visited those three places, but none of them had seen or heard of it. When that failed, I looked up a U.S. Consulate in Salzburg, determined I would visit the next day to try and sort this whole debacle out.

I went to the building Google said the consulate was located in. There was a consulate for Bosnia…but not the U.S. I spent three hours scouring that block and the three surrounding it and could not find it. I was flabbergasted. How was it that I lost my passport, and now could not find the consulate building that was clearly listed online? To further add insult to injury, I had been mugged three weeks earlier near a nightclub and had my phone and some other personal items stolen. So I was using a cheap replacement phone and had exceeded my data plan looking for the consulate.

Thursday I went out again to look for the consulate. This time I was hell-bent and determined to find it. I began knocking on doors and asking people in an odd mixture of English, Italian and German if they knew where it was located. Finally, someone told me where it had been several years ago. Since Google had failed me, and this was the only information I had gotten in the better part of two days, I decided to try it. I rang the buzzer and a very helpful dentist answered…telling me that the consulate had closed two years ago!

I was out of options and had spent so much time looking for the passport I finally decided not to think about it. I had copies of all my major travel documents, a return bus ticket booked and one night left in Salzburg. I was determined to enjoy it. I went to the hookah lounge with my buddy and our friends that night. We drank and sang and had a great time. I left him at his hotel around 11 p.m. and we said our goodbyes. It was a difficult one for me, getting just a taste of being home after being away for five months.

As I was walking back to my hostel, a Romanian-Italian gentleman approached me and asked me for a cigarette. I bummed him one and he began to walk with me. I spoke very little Italian, but we hodge-podged a conversation together for about 10 minutes until we reached the train station. In front of the main station is a large square that is a well-travelled area of the city. When we stopped here, I tried to find a polite way to say goodbye and be off on my way. I tried to leave, but he offered to come with me, an offer I declined. After being in the square for 10 minutes, just as I was finally about to tear away from this guy, six fully armed Polizei approached us. The first two words out of their mouth were the only two words I hoped to not hear from an officer of the law until I had arrived in Milan the following evening…"Passports please."

Let me give you some brief context of Austria’s attitude towards the immigration crisis at this time. The immigration crisis broke out the week after I landed in September. Thousands of people stormed the borders in the east and flowed into Europe from broken and depressed homelands. At first, while many were concerned, there were no serious reactions to the influx of people. Most countries increased the amount of soldiers on the ground. So the sight of soldiers patrolling with assault rifles was one that I had grown accustomed to over the past five months. After some time, however, public fears began to take root and forced some countries to react. Austria was one of those countries that took action, significantly tightening its border control and screening processes. This was all going through my head as these six, rifle-toting officers approached.

The stranger showed the officers his European ID card and ran out of there. I asked the first officer if he spoke English. He didn’t but one of the officers in the group did, so he came up to talk to me. He repeated the request for a passport, and I told him I did not have one. He asked me for an ID card and I explained to him that I was American, not European, and did not have an ID card. He asked me if I had any form of valid ID… I handed him my student card from my university in Milan. He looked at me as if to say “What the hell is this?”

I began to explain my entire debacle up until this point. I showed him the copies of all my travel documents, but he became very uneasy. Now, let me explain why. Some people say when you go away for a period of time it can change you. Well, Italy did that for me, in many ways but most noticeably physically. Below are two photos: the left photo was taken right before I left for Italy and the photo on the right is what I looked like right around this particular time. Looking at these images, I can't say I totally blame them for their reactions.

They told me the documents and my student card were not valid, and they had to detain me. They took my backpack, zip-tied my hands and put me in the back of a big police van that I had seen them load detainees into earlier in the week. I kept my reactions calm but inside I was starting to freak out. I ran through all the worst case scenarios in my head, but the one that seemed to cause me the most anxiety was the thought of having to call my mother from an Austrian police station explaining the situation. I swear I could hear her screaming on the phone from the back of that van. As I sat there, the other five officers searched my bag while the guy I had been speaking to continued to ask me questions. I kept my cool, although not without giving myself pep talks in my head every other minute, and continued to tell him what had happened.

He began to tell me that he was going to take me down to the police station, make me fill out a report, put me on a travel restriction list and that I faced the possibility of further detention. He then proceeded to tell me I had to travel to Vienna (across the country) and go to the U.S. Embassy there to sort this issue out.

If you know anything about me, you would know that I don’t like to ask people for things or plead for help. Maybe its hubris, but regardless, it makes what I did next very impressive for me. I begged this officer to work with me. I told him that I did not have the money to travel to Vienna, let alone to Vienna and then back to Milan. I told him my mid-terms were beginning on Monday and I could not afford to get stuck in Vienna even if I could travel there. I also explained that all my things were back in Milan and I knew where the consulate was there. If I could get back to Milan, I could get everything sorted out. He resisted me at first, but finally I started to make some headway. He left me in the van to step outside and confer with his colleagues. I sat there hoping so hard that it hurt that he would give me a good result. Five minutes passed, then 10 and 15. They debated feverishly and all I could do was watch and wait, not even able to understand the language they were speaking. I was on the outside looking in on my own fate.

Twenty minutes later, he slid open the side door of the vehicle and motioned for me to approach him. He asked me again if I could travel to Vienna, and I told him I could not. He sighed and shook his head and my heart sank, thinking I was surely bound for a holding cell. All those fears and worse case scenarios flooded back into my head like flood waters bursting through a dam. I lowered my eyes and just as I was about to raise my head back up and make another impassioned plea he cut in. “What is your travel route back to Milan?”

A glimmer of hope immediately shone in my otherwise clouded mind. I perked up and told him my bus route. “Impossible!” he exclaimed, “Even if by some miracle you got through the German border, you would surely be arrested at the Swiss border, What other plan did you have?” I gave him a sheepish look and told him that was my only plan, to show them my copies and hope for the best. He continued to shake his head and told me to wait, going back to speak with the other officers. I was reinvigorated. At least he was beginning to work with me now. They spoke for another ten minutes and their feverish debate suddenly became very quiet and subdued. I took a few deep breaths as the officer approached the van, his face bearing an ominously stern expression.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, “I will not detain you and make you file a report…IF you promise to get on the first train out of this city. There is a route you can take back to Milan, and you will cross the Italian border directly. They stop and search every train. If you get searched at the border, then you will certainly be arrested, but it is your best chance to get back home.” My mouth reacted before my brain had a chance to process what I had just heard. I barely heard my response to him. “Done, where do I go?” As he began to explain the route, my brain caught up to the rest of my body. The full impact of what I was about to attempt hit me like a car crashing into a brick wall. If I was caught I would go to jail for trying to illegally cross a border without valid documentation. If I made it… well I couldn’t think even think about that at the time. My mind was too flooded with every possible worst-case scenario I could envision.

When the officer finished explaining the route, he cut my ties, handed me my bag and escorted me into the station to watch me buy my ticket. After that, I extended my hand out to him and thanked him for helping me out. He shook it and wished me luck before turning on his heels and exiting the station to rejoin his squad.

I waited until he was gone from my sight until I moved. I began to make towards my hostel at a furious pace. All the while trying to process what had just happened and establish a game plan for what I was about to do. I barely had time to think about the fact that I had just been detained for the first time in my life…by police in a foreign country…for not having a passport. I got back to my hostel, threw everything I could find into my duffle and checked out. I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. I was on a train by three in the morning. By nine in the morning, we rolled into a station called Brennero-Brenner, a.k.a The Austrian-Italian border.

I was sitting in the last seat of the train car on the right side. I had my duffle bag next to me, my backpack on the floor and my coat laying across everything. I had my iPad out, and for some strange reason, I was reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. I don’t know why I was reading that book. I have never really enjoyed the classics as my usual pleasure reading. I think it was because I was so stressed out about the situation I was in I needed something to do to distract myself. At that point, I was truly open to anything.

The train slowly powered down, and after two minutes of screeching and the sound of air hissing throughout the complex network of pipes throughout the contraption, all was quiet. I took a moment to look around me. None of the other passengers seemed concerned. Many had not even moved from whatever position they were in to see where we were. I looked out my window to see the station house and platform. Both were nearly empty at that hour of the morning.

When I looked out the window of the left side of the car, however, I almost laughed. There were two rectangular signed mounted on a concrete wall. The sign on the left bore the red and white striped flag of Austria as well as the name of the country. Then there was a space, maybe 18-24 inches before the next sign. The second sign bore the green, white and yellow stripes of Italy as well as the name of the country. It was the space between the signs that nearly caused me to burst out laughing. That space, I assume, represented the borderline of the two countries.

The border that I had to cross to get back home. The border I had to cross to avoid being arrested, charged with a major crime and locked up abroad. The border I had to cross to get back in time for my mid-terms. The border I had to cross to get back to the blonde, Italian woman I had a huge crush on. The border I had to cross to get back to my friends and tell them the story of a lifetime. The border I had to cross to get back to all my friends and family in Italy and at home. The border I had to cross before I could even think about breathing again... and I was sitting on it. Not metaphorically, literally! My seat in the train car was perfectly rested on the space between the two signs. I was neither in Austria nor in Italy. The irony was incredible. I remember looking up to the heavens and muttering “Really?!” sarcastically under my breath.

My moment of blissful irony and reflection was soon shattered when I noticed two fully armed soldiers enter the front of the train car. They began to move down the car, one soldier assigned to each side, asking people for identification. My panic began to intensify as I saw them ask every single passenger for a passport. They even roused the passengers who were sleeping.

I took two deep breaths and practically buried my head into my iPad. I must have read the same page 5,000 time. I couldn’t even remember what was on that page if you asked me. My eyes were seeing words, but my brain was not understanding them. I kept sneaking glances at the soldiers as they crept closer and closer to my seat. Finally, they arrived to the gentleman seated in front of me and the passenger sleeping across from him. “This is it,” I told myself, “Your grand European adventure is about to come to a very dramatic end.” I fished the copies of my travel documents out of the same breast pocket that my passport had fallen from (another irony to add to my ever growing collection).

Then they both turned to the portly guy sitting directly across the aisle from me. As he handed them his document, I resisted the screaming in my brain and stole a look up at the soldiers. They were young guys, neither of them were a day over twenty four, shaven and athletic. They were no more than six inches from my face. I could not help but hold the glance for a few moments, seeing the scene play out in my head that I was certain would occur within mere moments in reality. I returned my gaze to my iPad, closed it down, grabbed my envelope containing my travel documents and closed my eyes. Taking a few seconds to compose myself and find some solace before I embarked into the unknown. I heard crinkling of the cloth on the soldier’s uniforms as they began to move. I opened my eyes and waited for the one word, two syllables that I knew would set off a dramatic chain of events for me…but it never came.

Five seconds passed before I final forced myself to look up. The two young soldiers I expected to see standing over me where gone. I heard the sound of the train car door open and looked back just in time to see them exiting the train car. I leaned back in my seat, stunned, unable to process what had happened…or rather what didn’t happen. Every muscle in my body froze, my brain felt like a vinyl record skipping as it tried to process what was going on but unable to come to grips with it. The disastrous scenario I had envisioned and spent the better part of six hours preparing myself for didn’t happen. They skipped me. They didn’t even turn around to acknowledge my existence, they just walked out of the car. I couldn’t believe it, so much so that the cynic in me took over after a couple of minutes. “Nooooo, no way,” I thought to myself, “I’m lucky, but not THAT lucky! They have to come back. One of them is gonna realize they forgot somebody or remember the zombie-looking university student in the back of the car.”

I chuckled and convinced myself that it was false hope, surely they would return and catch me and all the bad things I had prepared myself for would happen. So began the longest 10 minutes of my life. I have never been more scared in my life than I was in those 10 minutes.

That is not a statement that I make lightly. I have survived cancer, been awake while a doctor stuck the biggest needle you have ever seen directly into my spinal cord, seen my mother survive cancer twice, lost friends to sickness and tragedy, lost family to suicide and overdoses. I have seen my youngest sister's life forever impacted by a severe mental illness and the effect that has had on our lives. I have felt first-hand the impact of a recession and a divorce. I have taken a car up onto a guardrail with me inside, nearly dying three different ways in the process. I have been to my darkest place and come out the other side. I am not exaggerating these facts or using them to create pity, but you should understand that I fought through all of these things and survived. So when I tell you I was never more scared than I was for those 10 minutes of agony in that train car, you can now begin to understand the gravity of the fear I was grappling with in those moments.

10 minutes later, the unthinkable happened. The train began to hiss and scream to life. I still sat there unable to believe; still trying to convince myself they would return, but they never did. A few minutes later, I felt the brakes on the train release. In that instant, before the train began to move forward, all was still for me. It was almost like floating, not fully stopped but not moving forward at any noticeable speed either. I was in limbo on that border, and as those brakes released, all the pent up fear and anxiety flew out of me like a gasp of air. I felt so light and free, like the weight of a million men had been lifted off my chest. I spent the next hour looking out the window at the snow covered mountains. I noticed every tree, every house and village. I felt so alive and had never been so happy to go home…

As I sat there in that train, rolling through the Italian countryside, it suddenly hit me what I had just done. I had illegally snuck across a national border. After the initial rush of adrenaline of pulling off this feat washed over me, I immediately began to see the deeper impact of what I had just done. My mind began to think on the immigration crisis in Europe and my own country. I suddenly realized the unique perspective this experience had given me on the matter. Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not comparing my story to the millions who came before and after mine. They are not even remotely the same. I was trying to get home, while the vast majority of illegals are fleeing theirs. I had a valid document to start with, while many of them never even have that benefit. I don’t know the horrors and tragedies of running from a homeland ripped apart by violence, greed, corruption or extremism. I would not dare even imply that my experience even comes close to that.

However, I can say I know what it's like to feel stuck somewhere you don’t want to be with no easy way out. I can say I have felt the fear such an attempt carries and truly understand the consequences associated with it. If after all that I have gone through in my life I still experienced such enormous fear in that moment without the additional horrors many of these people have been exposed to beforehand…I can hardly imagine how much more magnified it is for them. So to a degree, I get it. I certainly have a more intimate perspective of the struggles and challenges these men, women and children go through. I was just trying to get home to my warm bed in Milan, a university student studying abroad and living the dream. Most of them are running for their lives, leaving everything they have ever loved or known behind in the process. Traveling to places with the heaviness of uncertainty hanging over every single aspect of their future. Think about that…I sure have.