In the morning, we got up and went walking around Gdynia, a relatively big (ha! by NZ standards, maybe) port city that's essentially merged into Gdansk. Breakfast was what was to become a staple for me in Poland; naleśniki, or Polish crepes (basically everybody translates it as pancakes, but they're goddamned crepes), in this case filled with spinach and cottage cheese, or some other delicious milk product.
We left, bloated, and Andy showed me around the city a bit, along with a bit of shoe shopping. Obviously, one of the more interesting parts of Gdynia was the harbour, so here's some photos:
One of many moments when I've wished I'd carried my zoom lens.
<3 autumn.
Much of Gdynia made me think of a reasonably standard outsider's perspective of a city from the communist bloc, probably not at all helped by the weather, which was generally cloudy: lots of concrete monoliths of spartan design; wide, cracked roads; people going about their business hurriedly. Of course, this was only scratching the surface, and the Poles I spoke to were all excellent people, and there probably isn't a country in the world replacing 20th-century infrastructure en-masse, despite the stressed importance in many of my university courses of selecting an appropriate design life. In any case, this building was an interesting ray of sunshine in an otherwise mostly grey city.
I believe it was that first night that Andy and I went out to a shot bar (turns out it was one of many in the chain, I assume across Poland: I later saw several in Krakow) with Ola and a few of her friends. Before 9pm shots in this place (most of which were extremely delicious, and came in flavours like lemon vodka with ginger syrup and pepper, and ###) cost around NZD0.75. After 9pm the price doubled to a heinous $1.50, and all the locals (students) basically stopped drinking. As if the price of such cheap shots going up less than a dollar was gonna stop Andy and I.
The next day was spent procuring and eating bacon and eggs.
For my 3rd day in Poland, we went to Gdansk, the slightly bigger city that's amalgamated with Gdynia. The city centre had a lot of old time-y charm, and we spent a few hours just wandering, with a few trips into shoe shops, and a reasonable amount of time spent trying to find food that looked delicious and not too expensive...
The train station.
I don't recall seeing a huge amount of street art in Poland, but I liked this guy.
I love these types of houses. Also note the water taxis.
Main tourist strip of Gdansk, lined with expensive restaurants. Also, I assume, surrounded by strip clubs (the shot bar was on a side street, and there was a fair amount of girls trying to get us to come to their clubs).
Some Poseidon-esque fellow slaying a serpent.
Cool-lookin palace thing.
The rather colossal cathedral. So big, much brick.
On day 4, we went for a walk through the forest to an abandoned building (pretty sure it was an asylum) Andy and Ola had visited on occasion. After a nice walk, with only a tiny amount of getting lost, we managed to find the place.
As expected, the place was tagged to hell and back. Some of it was pretty neat.
Paragliders!
After a few excellent days with Andy, I caught the rather long train to Krakow. Eleven or so hours later, I arrived, and promptly went to bed. I still have no idea what's so exhausting about spending all day sitting on a bus/train, but it always tires me out...
In the morning I went for a walk with some new friends to try and a find a couple of cemeteries. Naturally we didn't realise that Jewish cemeteries (or at least these ones) are closed on Sundays, so we were shit out of luck and wandered around the Jewish quarter for a while, with a stop or two for delicious Polish sausage.
Proper Imperial Stormtrooper.
Not entirely certain what the thing in the foreground was supposed to be.
The following day we went on a trip to Auschwitz. I only took half a dozen photos there, and I've thought a lot about what I could possibly say to describe the sorrow the whole place imparts. I'll just let the memorial speak...
The next day, I decided to finally get around to visiting the big castle on the hill, which turned out to be quite neat.
I wonder if they fill this thing with flowers in the summer...
There was an underground bit of the castle you could see. The bits on the bottom are ~1000 years old.
Main royal housing bit of the castle.
We also went in the cathedral up there, but it was no photos inside, though it was hella impressive.
On the way down to the "dragon's den."
The "dragon's den." 'twas quite cool, though no dragons about...
... except this guy outside.
I believe the next day was the day when we thought we were doing a free walking tour of the old town, but inadvertently ended up on the free walking tour of the Jewish quarter. We stayed almost til the end anyway, as it was quite interesting, but the weather was terrible and we left to find hot drinks rather than walk the last few minutes to Schindler's factory.
The following day we did our own free walking tour of the old town, though with significantly less historical knowledge added in.
The main square of Krakow.
Rather tall clock tower in said square.
Sideways head in the same square.
This is the grounds of a university which supposedly contains a rather interesting museum, but it was too expensive so we decided not to.
Could still walk the grounds though.
These thinkers...
This one looks like he just has a glorious beard instead of a neck. A beard-neck, one might say?
The huge church on the side of the main square. Probably one of the most impressively-decorated churches I've been in, though each section seemed kind of separate from the others.
Turns out I got the days mixed up and we went on the Jewish quarter walking tour after our little wander round the old town. Too lazy to go back and fix all that up. Anyway, we saw a cool mural in the Jewish ghetto! (which isn't really a ghetto any more).
On what I believe was my last full day in Krakow, the day's activities consisted of a short walk through St Florian's Gate, and past the Barbican, on the way to the train station to say adios to one of my week's companions. Then I went back to the hostel and wrote some previous entry of this blog.
Memorial for the Battle of Grunwald with Gigi and Brittney.
I then had to decide between 3 or 4 different place, to which I was thinking of going. In the end I chose Prague. Not sure why, but pretty happy with it after the fact...
