Nov-2013
Let us meet in Gdansk!
My friend Joyce lives in Scotland at the moment and I am in the Netherlands for now. Our common Skype topics are about where our next journey goes to, how the love goes, and where we can meet.
We want to see each other somewhere where we can both get to by airplane and where we can explore a new city together.
Living our dreams in Barcelona (2009)
Joyce and I met five years ago in Spain. I was working as an entertainment chef and she was working at our office. Occasionally, well almost every day, she joined the entertainment team for more fun at work. By then she had a Spanish boyfriend and I was living with my Spanish boyfriend too. Did I say Spanish? I mean Catalan. There is a huge difference between Spaniards and Catalans, but that is an entirely different topic. I might get to that conversation some other time. Anyway, we discovered that she and I had many things in common. Not just our Catalan boyfriends, but also our party style and especially the travel bug. It did not take us very long to discuss our dreams and plan an entire trip around the world. Luckily for our wallets, we had to postpone that trip, due to our career plans.
Visiting Joyce in Scotland (2011)
After having visited each other in Spain, the Netherlands and Scotland, we wanted to book a trip again. We were sitting on my sofa, saying we wanted to go somewhere. We started checking the internet for a cheap flight and on the same evening we arranged it all. My flight had to depart from the Netherlands and hers from Scotland. Ryanair normally has many cheep flight, but now we had to find two cheap flights from different countries arriving at the same destination on the same day. But we sure found it! Our next destination was going to be Gdansk, Poland.
A new place for us to discover
My blurry sight
My eyes are horrible, I refuse to wear glasses because they bug my nose (yes I know, lame excuse), but I cannot recognize people from a distance very quickly. Joyce had already arrived hours ago in Gdansk and awaited me there, but as I walked out of the gate, I could not recognize her due to my blurry sight. I walked towards the shape of my friend and fortunately it was her. Yes! Finally we meet again!
La próxima parada: Gdansk
The hostel in Gdansk named La Guitarra with their rocking interior. We slept in the room of Slash!
On the night we booked the flight, we also immediately booked a hostel and it was a good choice. La Guitarra had friendly staff working there and they offered us a clean room and even a clean bathroom! There are not so many clean bathrooms in hostels, but La Guitarra did a great job with the hygiene policy.
After having explored entire Gdansk within one day, we thought we were supposed to go shopping. Luckily we found a train station for some more discovering to do in the nearby town of Sopot. We bought a ticket and went looking for the right train. That was not the easiest part of the day, since everything – the signs, the announcements – were in Polish language. When we discovered we had to wait more than an hour before our train would leave we figured we should try and find that Stradivarius store we saw on the roadsigns earlier that day. In Spain we always bought all of our clothes there and since there is still no Stradivarius in the Netherlands we went completely wild when we entered the store in Gdansk. They even had a sale going on. Outch, that is bad news for my wallet! After buying too many clothes we went back to the train station and got on the Sopot train..
Gaudi in Sopot
The ‘Krzywy Domek’ or the Crooked House in Sopot
Oh my god, Renate, look at that!
Says Joyce. I guess we were both thinking the same: is this from Gaudi? The bright yellow weird shaped building reminded us of Barcelona as if it were a déjà vu. But how come we had never heard of it? Therefor it could not be Gaudi’s. We discovered that it is actually designed by Szotyńscy & Zaleski and that on the inside of the building you can find a tiny shopping mall with some restaurants.
Longest pier of europe
The nice thing about Sopot is that is has a beach. It actually owns the longest pier of Europe! You can enjoy the sound of the sea while snow is giving the city a winter wonderland look. The restaurant on the pier is open throughout the entire year, therefor we could enjoy the seaview for a couple of hours with a hot drink and a radiator next to our table. It sure was cold outside!
Ice-skating at night in front of the pier in Sopot
Next to the pier stood a big ice skating platform where you could rent skates and dazzle on the ice for a while. We decided to hit a bar and try some local beers before taking the train back to Gdansk. Even in this place, where there is not that much to do, we could enjoy ourselves perfectly for a week. I highly recommend going to Gdansk with some friends for a short get-away. I have one tip though: buy a Polish language book before going to Poland 😉
About Renate Rigters
Ever since I left my home country I felt at home at any other place I went to. I enjoy getting to know more cultures by talking to strangers and hearing their philosophy about life. Speaking with gestures when you can not find a shared language, finding places only the locals go to and learn about their customs and values. Hanging out with local people makes me happy. The experience of every new place is a step out of your comfort zone where I like to wander around until it feels like a second home.
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