How could I ignore this jewel of Eastern Europe! Besides turning West would mean turning in the direction of home and that’s not in my plans just yet.
Let me quickly tell you about ‘two firsts’ that I experienced on the airplane to get here from Germany:
1) I board the Wizz Air plane with my ticket showing seat number 7A. I knew that ‘A’ meant I would have the window seat which is always a good thing and especially good simply because it’s not the middle! Ain’t that the truth fellow flyers? Amen to that. I get to my seat and there’a young-ish guy there so I politely ask him to move. He says ‘Ah, I have a favour to ask. You see this is my first flight and I am both nervous and excited. Do you mind if I take this window seat’?
With a less than happy look on my face of course I give in despite being completely cynical to what he has said. First flight…yeah right. D’you think I was born yesterday.
Admittedly though it didn’t take me long to actually believe what he said was true and so I was a little happier that I didn’t get a fast-one pulled on me.
Oh, and of course you know which seat he originally had and that I now occupied? Yep, the middle. Classic.
2) Have any of you been on a plane that proceeds to land, gets fairly close to landing and then pulls back up!!! Well that’s what actually happened here which was an interesting (and momentarily scary) experience let me tell you. However, its one that is apparently semi-normal for setting down at Gdansk airport. Needless to say after it happened, I promptly turn to my right and say to a well-dressed lady ‘Uhh, what just happened?‘.
She informs me before the Pilot does, I guess he’s a little busy trying to fly and not crash, that this happened to her last time and that it didn’t have a good ending as they eventually landed in Warsaw which is miles and miles from here! Oh sh!t. Minutes later the Pilot gets on the loud speaker and says heavy wind was the cause of what just happened and so he is going to try one further attempt and if no success second time round we will look to land in an airport ‘close by’ wherever that might be (and hopefully not Warsaw!). I quickly squeeze a little prayer and am happy to report that second time lucky was successful. Phew, phew and phew!
All’s well that ends well, folks.
So why Gdansk?
I was referred to Gdansk, a city I had never previously heard of, by two travel friends consisting of Lara from Italy and Lukas from Germany. Immediately I could understand why they suggested this area, except I have come at the single busiest time of the year. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing? What a busy time does guarantee though is atmosphere so bring it on.
Here’s what is happening around the area and also some other things well known that I can hopefully visit:
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- -Saint Dominc’s fair is on and will be on for three weeks. This really is a big, big event. More another time…
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- -Lenny Kravitz played a couple of miles up the road on Saturday night.
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- -You may recall that back in Sarajevo I visited the very spot that was the so-called ‘spark’ of World War 1. It’s now the turn of the most wide-spread war in history; WW2. Did you know that it started in this very area? Gotta visit that.
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- -The largest castle in Poland is within train distance of Gdansk so I’m going to have to consider visiting this too.
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- -And last but my no means least, it offers beaches directly connected to the Baltic Sea! Yes folks, Poland has beaches!
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I know a lot of people back home want me to enjoy more ‘beach time’ so not wanting to disappoint, I made sure I got my priorities straight:
Strangely for me I was soooo looking forward to a little beach time that I packed everything I needed for the day…….except swimming shorts! But you didn’t think I’d let that error stop me did you? 🙂
I’ll check in with you in the days to come having hopefully conquered some of the above. And maybe even some more beach time! If this proves to be a good week, I might write a dedicated post about how you can get here and why you should.
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