The Pick-Pocketed Expirience

It had to happen at least once. Sunday was it.

I spent the past few days bopping around the Baltic with my Fulbrighter friends (pictures are forthcoming). We spent three days in Stockholm and then I stayed three days with my friend Jennifer who is an ETA in Gdańsk (pictures of that are also forthcoming). Here's the exciting part: somewhere in the process of getting on the train in Sopot (a city adjacent to Gdańsk), my wallet disappeared.

When getting on the train, there is always a lot of shoving, especially in second class. There are no seat assignments; everyone just climbs on and finds a compartment. Well, (and I've realized this after replaying the situation over and over in my head during the four-hour ride back to Poznań) as I got on the train there was a group of guys pushing to get off the train, which was odd because Sopot is only the second stop. I'm pretty sure someone was behind me pushing the pack of passangers through the aisle as these guys pushed in the opposite direction. The train hallways are narrow to begin with, so this made the compactness ridiculous. When I found a compartment and sat down, I noticed the flap of my bag was open...and my wallet was MIA. Of course, I freaked out and uttered a few choice words.

The other girl in my compartment spoke English, and she offered to watch my back pack while I went on a search for my wallet (at this point, I was hoping that I had simply dropped it). It was nowhere to be found. I called Jennifer, and she double checked the platform back at the station. She said that she had seen a group of men get off the train in Sopot, which she thought was really odd. I'm assuming that they got off with my money in tow. Anyway, Jennifer offered to call my mama and tell her what had happened. I had a 4.5 hour train ride ahead of me, and the quicker we could get my banking cards canceled the better.

I sought out a member of the train staff, and in my broken Polish I attempted to explain my situation. Thankfully, I still had my train ticket, but my student ID was gone--having a student ticket but no student ID is a big problem on the Polish trains. In my broken Polish, I tried to tell the conductor woman what had happened. It went something like, "I have a problem. I have no cards, zloty, ID. Someone has my money; I don't know who. It's not in my bag. It went away (I really don't know the word for away--there was a lot of gesturing involved in this conversation.)" I think she thought I was nuts...but the point did get across.

As I said, I had 4.5 hours to mull this all over. All and all, I think I was lucky. I still have my passport, camera, iPod, and keys. Plus, I had picked up a few small Christmas gifts in Gdańsk, and they made it back to Poznań with me. I did lose about 200 złoty (about $60 US), but I can deal with that. It could have been much, much worse.

If nothing else, this will make me more cautious. Though I doubt I will be hugging my bag to my chest whenever I leave my dorm (that is something I do only when I am transporting a Polish teapot for my grandma through an airport). I will simply bury my new wallet (an investment I will make when all my bank cards are replaced) deeper in my bag. And I will continue to hope that whoever has my money spends it on cancer-causing cigarettes...preferably, the unfiltered kind.