A long time ago, on the other side of the pond, I met a traveling man from Amsterdam. He snuck into our backpacker’s hostel after hours and tried to sleep in the loft above the common space so that he could get away with not paying for a place to sleep. The staff scolded him black and blue.

He forgot to remember that all the supermarkets in Germany are closed on Sundays, and so when Sunday rolled around, all he had to eat was bread and water. He joked that it was worse than prison food.

He had an odd charm, and I liked him.

This week, he is vacationing in Poland.

He shared photographs of train stations filled with people who are fleeing Ukraine. He stopped to talk to as many of them as possible, trying to understand how they are doing. He said he was trying to make them feel welcome.

His was not a reputable character and I would not take his stories at face value. But I think there’s room for a little truth. Enough.

I started this blog at 4am in the common space of a shady, dirt cheap youth hostel in Krakow. That was almost as far away from home as I’d ever been. East of here.

Much has happened since then, but if that place is still in operation, I wonder it’s filled with refugees.

I wonder if there are road weary people leaning their foreheads on the cool glass of the window in the bar downstairs, feeling haunted and small and scared.

The bus stations, the hostels, the markets, the streets – I have walked in some of those places. And that gives me goosebumps.