Up at 4am. Train, Stansted, plane, arrive in Gdansk. Take bus from airport. It is conveniently free, as I only have a 100Zl (£20) note and the driver can't change it. I pick up a map from Tourist Information in Gdansk town centre and find my route to the hostel. TI are very helpful and mark on the map exactly where I need to go. Set off; cold. Walk through the main old town / tourist street of Gdansk. This does not take long.
Get to destination - the hostel is supposed to be at number 7. All I can see are some huge apartment blocks numbered 1 and 2. I walk towards some other huge apartment blocks close by. They are numbered up to 5.
I spend about half an hour wandering a Polish council estate. Eventually I enter a small courtyard in the middle - this is much posher, with a gate and high walls. I ask at the entrance for the hostel, and am waved in. The courtyard is both small and conspicuously absent of hostels. I wander into a nearby door and ask for help. I'm informed I'm in a music school, but that the hostel is near. A friendly English-speaking Pole points directly towards one of the huge apartment blocks. It has yellow patterning up the side. He says, "yellow building, yellow building". Progress!
I exit the courtyard and walk round the wall to the building. It has nothing on it to indicate it either is or contains a hostel. I check each of the other four blocks carefully and none have transformed since my last pass. I re-enter the courtyard for no real reason. When I do, however, I realise that the English-speaking Pole was not pointing directly at the yellow-patterned apartment block, but at a sign for a hotel. Around the corner, very close by, is a hotel in a yellow brick building.
It turns out that the Polish for "hostel" is apparently "hotel", which is also the Polish for "hotel". This becomes a repeated problem.
I enter the hotel, put on my best "friendly-but-clueless" face and ask for help. I tell them my hostel's address and they point out where to go. Turns out those idiots at TI can't read a map. I'm thinking of adopting "Everyone is incompetent" as my personal motto.
Find hostel, check in. It is completely comfortable and perfectly soulless. It is now three hours since my flight landed and I am starving. Go to nearby bakery and ask for the most exciting looking pastry. The baker can't sell it as she cannot change my 100Zl note. This has rapidly lost its novelty value. I tell her I will change the note and come back later.
I wander back up the main street and it is wide, empty and full of closed restaurants. I pick a side-street at random and find a cafe, which seems large enough that they might have £20 worth of change on the premises. I've been up since early o'clock and am starving, so I'm not in the mood to try anything clever - I ask for a slice of pizza and a coffee. I must be more tired than I think because the waitress seems to be asking me "ketchup?" I make no response. My pizza arrives. It is smothered in ketchup.
I wander back to the train station to get some information for when I go to Vilnius. I perform a random walk in Gdansk on the way. It's not that there aren't churches and exciting buildings to see, it's just that they appear to be universally scaffolded, boarded up or generally closed. I walk along the river and find the Gdansk Crane. This is thankfully interesting - the crane has existed in one form or another for about 800 years. In its day it was powered by four huge wooden wheels, which had men walking inside them to lift cargo from ships.
The crane third of the maritime museum closed at three, so I decided to come back the next day and see the granary and ship across the river. More walking revealed the national art gallery. It had some nice pictures and an exhibition of chairs.
I head back to the hostel, partly to shower and partly to try and find a friend for dinner. On the way I hit the bakery I'd failed to buy from that morning. With the change from lunch I buy a pastry. I'm not really hungry, but I told her I'd be back and I do try not to lie.
There's nobody at the hostel. I wash. Gdansk has been dull and boring. I decide rather than wait and leave after two nights here, I'm going to go tomorrow. It's not quite time for dinner so I head back to the station, again, to book my train. The journey is dead easy, there's only one connection and I have hours to make it. The ticket is more money than I have on me, so I head to the ATM.
My card doesn't work.
This is a problem. I have just under £20 and I need to buy me train ticket, dinner and room for the night, not to mention the two weeks travelling I'm about to start. I try three more ATMs. None work.
I calculate if I can pay for the ticket on my card I can still afford dinner, and luckily it works. I have chicken skewers for dinner, and a pint. I go home and pass no pubs. Gdansk is grim in the day and dead at night. I've made the right choice bugging out.
I call the bank before bed, but their 24-hour helpline is not answering. Everyone is incompetent.
Bedtime. Tomorrow I will get up early and get the train to some place called Kalingrad. What could go wrong?
Estimated number of units today: 2
Estimated number of units total: 2
Estimated number of girls taken to bed today: 0
Estimated number of girls taken to bed total: 0
Get to destination - the hostel is supposed to be at number 7. All I can see are some huge apartment blocks numbered 1 and 2. I walk towards some other huge apartment blocks close by. They are numbered up to 5.
I spend about half an hour wandering a Polish council estate. Eventually I enter a small courtyard in the middle - this is much posher, with a gate and high walls. I ask at the entrance for the hostel, and am waved in. The courtyard is both small and conspicuously absent of hostels. I wander into a nearby door and ask for help. I'm informed I'm in a music school, but that the hostel is near. A friendly English-speaking Pole points directly towards one of the huge apartment blocks. It has yellow patterning up the side. He says, "yellow building, yellow building". Progress!
I exit the courtyard and walk round the wall to the building. It has nothing on it to indicate it either is or contains a hostel. I check each of the other four blocks carefully and none have transformed since my last pass. I re-enter the courtyard for no real reason. When I do, however, I realise that the English-speaking Pole was not pointing directly at the yellow-patterned apartment block, but at a sign for a hotel. Around the corner, very close by, is a hotel in a yellow brick building.
It turns out that the Polish for "hostel" is apparently "hotel", which is also the Polish for "hotel". This becomes a repeated problem.
I enter the hotel, put on my best "friendly-but-clueless" face and ask for help. I tell them my hostel's address and they point out where to go. Turns out those idiots at TI can't read a map. I'm thinking of adopting "Everyone is incompetent" as my personal motto.
Find hostel, check in. It is completely comfortable and perfectly soulless. It is now three hours since my flight landed and I am starving. Go to nearby bakery and ask for the most exciting looking pastry. The baker can't sell it as she cannot change my 100Zl note. This has rapidly lost its novelty value. I tell her I will change the note and come back later.
I wander back up the main street and it is wide, empty and full of closed restaurants. I pick a side-street at random and find a cafe, which seems large enough that they might have £20 worth of change on the premises. I've been up since early o'clock and am starving, so I'm not in the mood to try anything clever - I ask for a slice of pizza and a coffee. I must be more tired than I think because the waitress seems to be asking me "ketchup?" I make no response. My pizza arrives. It is smothered in ketchup.
I wander back to the train station to get some information for when I go to Vilnius. I perform a random walk in Gdansk on the way. It's not that there aren't churches and exciting buildings to see, it's just that they appear to be universally scaffolded, boarded up or generally closed. I walk along the river and find the Gdansk Crane. This is thankfully interesting - the crane has existed in one form or another for about 800 years. In its day it was powered by four huge wooden wheels, which had men walking inside them to lift cargo from ships.
The crane third of the maritime museum closed at three, so I decided to come back the next day and see the granary and ship across the river. More walking revealed the national art gallery. It had some nice pictures and an exhibition of chairs.
I head back to the hostel, partly to shower and partly to try and find a friend for dinner. On the way I hit the bakery I'd failed to buy from that morning. With the change from lunch I buy a pastry. I'm not really hungry, but I told her I'd be back and I do try not to lie.
There's nobody at the hostel. I wash. Gdansk has been dull and boring. I decide rather than wait and leave after two nights here, I'm going to go tomorrow. It's not quite time for dinner so I head back to the station, again, to book my train. The journey is dead easy, there's only one connection and I have hours to make it. The ticket is more money than I have on me, so I head to the ATM.
My card doesn't work.
This is a problem. I have just under £20 and I need to buy me train ticket, dinner and room for the night, not to mention the two weeks travelling I'm about to start. I try three more ATMs. None work.
I calculate if I can pay for the ticket on my card I can still afford dinner, and luckily it works. I have chicken skewers for dinner, and a pint. I go home and pass no pubs. Gdansk is grim in the day and dead at night. I've made the right choice bugging out.
I call the bank before bed, but their 24-hour helpline is not answering. Everyone is incompetent.
Bedtime. Tomorrow I will get up early and get the train to some place called Kalingrad. What could go wrong?
Estimated number of units today: 2
Estimated number of units total: 2
Estimated number of girls taken to bed today: 0
Estimated number of girls taken to bed total: 0
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