Next step! Gdansk, It was actually a last minute decision as well, I was almost going to Wroclaw, another beautiful city in the south, but somehow a couple of unexpected things just had captivated my eyes.
Gdansk? Danzig?
Germans probably don’t easily recognize the name of the city since it’s “Danzig” in German, but in Polish, which is more important is “Gdansk”. Sorry for my ignorance guys, I wasn’t aware of that it’s also geographically close to Kaliningrad.
Night bus
I’m not a big fan of traveling in the night bus, well, no other choices, cheap, fast and convenient “Polski bus” accompanied me once again. Can you even imagine? 11 hours, Poland is a huge country, actually a lot huger than your imagination. Not to wonder though, Krakow is very near by the czech border on the contrary, Gdansk close to german border, technically more like to Szczecin. Well, as the final outcome it was awesome being on the bus although there were some old guys snoring as if the world getting closer to an end, obviously not their fault nevertheless, I don’t even notice whenever I snore, it just shows how much we human beings get tired sometimes.
Dariusz
I have a very old friend from Gdansk, actually one of the oldest ones of mine. Dariusz, Darek as his nick. Polish names have nicks for close friends and are obviously easier to pronounce and remember. Let’s have a look what I know 🙂
Dariusz – Darek (I don’t know why it’s Darek though, many polish male names end up with rek)
Mariusz – Marek (Same logic as Dariusz)
Katarzyna – Kasia (Catherine in english, Kathleen in both french and german, Caterina in italian)
Agnieszka – Aga (Agnes in english and german, very polish name I’d say)
Joanna – Asia (Quite funny because there was one polish girl from Wroclaw in my spanish class back then and when she gave us a brief introduction, she called “Asia” herself, and we all were like, then where is Europe, where is Oceania? Bad joke, but it’s somehow easy to remember.)
There are a lot more, Malgorzata (Gosia as nick, Margaret in English and German), Piotr (Polish version of Peter), Aleksander and Aleksandra (Ola), Bartosz (Bartek as its nick).
Darek was so kind to invite me to his fascinating apartment, very nice, very clean, actually a perfect place to stay, I got full of envy. He’s an interesting person to talk to, he’s got a japanese wife and what makes it more entertaining to hear is that they met while playing a game together, life is so mysterious, I feel that everywhere I go.
Me and Darek.
During my stay in Gdansk he tried to give me some useful polish lessons, though I barely remember. It’s wonderful when someone is proud of his/her home country, unlikely me. I’m the opposite, actually that’s one of the impressions I got from polish people I met. Not such a big nationalism but they are very proud of being polish citizens, so impressive how much they love their national flag.
If you’re ever visiting Poland, GO TO Gdansk! It’s way more beautiful than other cities in Poland, of course, my opinion.
Photographs don’t show everything how the city looks like, but somehow we can guess and make our decision.
So here’s another hilarious conversation, Darek and I were passing by a souvenir store and some traditional polish dolls stopped us, it wasn’t like I was going to purchase them or anything but at least I wanted to look them better by going near.
Lady “Hello! Welcome, how can I help you?”
Me “Dzien dobry!”
And guess what, her colleague and her started to laugh as their ass off 😀 I don’t know why, perhaps my polish was funny or funny seeing a foreign guy speaking polish, because well you know, it’s not so easy to see, more like “rare”.
Made some decent shots.
Best shot from Gdansk by far.
There are two small cities near by Gdansk, one called “Sopot” a very beautiful baltic sea and the other one “Gdynia”. Very easy to go and come back to Gdansk, only 20-30 mins by local train.
Zapraszamy do Sopotu (Welcome to Sopot)
Walking and walking and walking.
I visited the observatory and guess what, the guide was a real funny guy, he apparently had been collecting all the coins, Euro, Zloty, Japanese yen, American $, Canadian, Australian and in fact everything. I had no coins actually and I was being a jerk asking if card transaction is possible, obviously not.
The guy – Unfortunately we don’t provide card payment. But let me ask you a very interesting offer. Do you have some other cash, it doesn’t have to be zloty.
Me – Okay, let me see, I think these are what I have.
Yes, they were swedish Krona and danish Krone, completely useless in Poland, you couldn’t afford buying anything. But he accepted.
The guy – You’ve been traveling around, right? Thank you so much for these.
Me – Proszę. (you’re welcome)
A loaf of bread is better than the song of many birds. Dropped in this restaurant. As you probably may notice, “Restauracja” means restaurant, quite easy, huh?
Gdynia, peace and peace. the Baltic sea was awesome, very different to the Mediterranean I think.
Happiness is seeing the beautiful Baltic sea while sitting on a park bench.
Polish beers
Too pity that they’re not yet as well known as their beloved neighbor Czech Republic’s. But I really enjoyed polish beers. Tyskie in particular, very nice and cheap. Every day of my stay in Gdansk, Darek and I dropped in the supermarket and grabbed every kind of polish beer, the best one obviously “Tyskie” and the funniest named one “Strong”. Can you believe that? 😀 A beer named “Strong” and it was strong enough to be named strong.
My last day in Gdansk, A lot of beers (actually there were more, but not shown in the pic above) and chips. I was like “Oh tomorrow I’m going to Germany, and that should be two times more expensive than in Poland, let me enjoy.”
It’s much more fun when you have friends in the city you visit, I don’t know how to express my thankful heart towards Darek, my stay there would never have been as fun as it was without him. My polish is terrible but let me say this.
“Dziękuję bardzo”
julianheyrman 