Holiday Inn Gdansk

Have spent every day of our vacation running about seeing monuments and museums and building styles and churches and old towns. Today is our last day beside the seashore before a 7 ½ hour train ride to Krakow. We thought to take it easy today. Slept late, went to a wonderfully chocolate restaurant for breakfast, determined from the hotel staff that there is no such thing as a coin Laundromat in Poland ...

... came very thick, almost as thick as chocolate pudding. I tasted hers and it was like chocolate pudding! As the drink cooled, it got thicker and thicker. They bring a spoon along with it so that you can finish it to the bottom of the glass. Yum!<br><br> Yesterday we are walking up the square in Sopot, Poland and I notice people sitting in a café with cups of what looks like ...

... staff comes to his table immediately. We signal that we are ready to order. We are not seen. We leave.<br><br> A jewelry store, an expensive jewelry store. I&#8217;ve gotten dressed up for the occasion, knowing that sometimes I seem to be invisible to clerks. My thought is that they will see I have money and come forward to sell me something. It doesn&#8217;t happen ...

... know Mexican but it was very good. <br><br> Finally we got into Arthur&#8217;s Court or Artus Court which was a gentlemen&#8217;s club basically. It was inspired by the Knights of the Round Table so a lot of the decorations were related to that era but also plenty of hanging ship models as most of the men of that time made their money through shipping. It was quite an interesting place ...

We have observed a phenomenon across several countries now. Doughnuts are not breakfast food any more in much of Asia. We're used to Dunkin&#8217; Donuts being open by 6:30 or 7 in the morning so you can stop on your way to work and pick up coffee and doughnuts, either just for yourself or for everyone. If ...

... the small camping and amuzing myself at the sight of rained down tents and despairing half drunk men dressed only in dirty wed shorts, desperately trying to save what can be saved, wed hair stuck to clammy scalps, polish swearwords ringing in my ears while I cycled the last ten km. to Hel - a small fishing village located on the tip of Hel Peninsula - being bombarded by pouring rain.<br><br>The sleepy village even has a ...

... and just saw them from the bus or stopped just long enough to get off, snap a shot and get back on. We sat in the front of the bus and the window kept leaking on me so I was soaked before we even started. We stopped at the Oliwa Cathedral, built in the 13th century and on the grounds of an old monastery. It has a huge organ and two smaller ones, consisting of 7,876 tin and wood pipes which can imitate the sounds of different musical ...

To continue from Vilnius, I left on a bus the night of Aug. 8 on what will probably be my longest journey during this trip (well except for those in Ukraine and Russia but those are massive countries that require long journeys). I was going to Gdansk, Poland. Buses are usually very uncomfortable when it comes to long journeys, especially overnight ones as you can never get any sleep. But I was smart and commandeered the back row of seats which meant I could lie down and get some proper ...

... to. I guess she's been eating her Wheaties! We threw in another load and then went to the Uphagen House. It's a lot like houses in Amsterdam - narrow in the front, but the houses extend far into the back. This is because houses here are taxed based on their frontage, just like in Amsterdam. It was pretty boring and was essentially a collection of plates and silverware. It was a good thing that admission was ...

... I went for a walk by the end of the afternoon to have fresh air and to get some food to cook a new recipe. Rice - red beet - peaches - zuchini... it was pretty tasty and I just made it up with what I saw. After the meal, we (with anya) went for a night walk of the historic downtown before stopping to get a typical snack (a kind of grilled cheese) and some beers to take once back home. It was a relaxing evening and I planned my route and made my laundry dry. Tomorrow back on the road!