COLD IN GDANSK

18th May 2010

Today has been cold. Actually better expressed as COLD. It was 9C when I went
out and now, at 8pm it is 10C – which happens to be the same as Auckland is
having. I know these thing not because I have a suburb sense of temperature,
but because I have a couple widgets on my computer which give me the local and
the Auckland temperature. Isn't the Internet an amazing system. What ever you
want to know it can find for you. Well, to be honest, most things.

Today I spent wandering around the streets of the Old Town. Very interesting it
was too. Of course, like every city so far, what you see is not usually the
original. It is a post war recreation of what was bombed out by the Germans and
the Russians. So what looks old is in reality rather new. However, they have
recreated a great copy of what was there originally and most tourists just take
what they see.

There are tourists around. You can tell by the walking groups and by the couples
walking along taking photos just as I was. There are also lots and lots of
student groups primary school upwards, being escorted around the town. There is
lots of excited chatter. Their buses park down near the hostel, so you see them
in double file heading of determinedly in the same direction as I go, but on
the opposite side of the road.

Highlights today included hearing the town hall bells ring out each hour.
Actually they start 3 or 4 minutes prior to the hour with a tune rung out
before the deep sounding hour bell chimes out the time. I thought that the
bells sounded rather good although I have no idea what the tune was they
played. I heard them first last evening on my first wander around.

Second highlight was to wander around the covered market. This was similar to
what I had seen elsewhere except most of the fruit and vegetables were on sale
out side. I bought some bananas

Third highlight was spending time talking to a couple of students who man one of
the amber stalls. Amber is the big item to tempt tourists here. They both knew
were NZ was and that it had fjords and was a nice country. So we chatted as
they had no customers and it was obvious that I wasn't. She works up to 10
hours a day even in winter when it is -15C. Many of the other stalls are closed
them so they hope to get any business that there may be. Her complaint was that
she only got an hour a day to see her son. She had good English and the male
was able to hold and follow conversation well too.

Next highlight was getting back to the hostel where it was warm and my laundry
was done by the helpful hostel staff (male at that). I had a chat in the
kitchen to the staff member on for this shift. He to is a student and is doing
economics. In term time he is able to fit his work hours around the classes so
he likes the job.

I only when into one church today and that was very briefly at the start, just a
block from the hostel as I wanted to see the inside of the stain glass windows.

Gdansk has a series of town gates and towers. Today I have seen several of each
including: Green Gate
Each gate is quite an imposing structure as I suppose it was once part of a wall
going round the city.
Also towers both round and square. I think the round ones look the most
photogenic. So I did take photos. Some of the towers and gates are large enough
to now house museums. There are plenty of museums, that's for sure. Most likely
I will go to one or two before I leave.

In the post office, which I wandered into in case I want to send mail, there
were a series of poster boards set up with photos and text in English and
Polish, telling about the war. Recently apparently Poland issued a couple of
stamps commemorating the attack on the country by Germany. I wonder how the
Germans would react getting a letter in the mail with these stamps on it.
Somewhere in the city there is a memorial to the brave post office workers who
mounted an armed resistance to the German Army from their post office. In the
end they were defeated and most killed, when their food and supplies ran out.

Around the old town, most of the buildings are the same style as I have seen in
the Czech Republic and in most of the places I have stayed in Poland. They just
seem higher here and perhaps with more decoration.

For an early tea I went on board a little ship anchored at the quayside. I had
some halibut and potato pancakes. Then on the way to the hostel I called into a
small store and got a rice and apple pudding - a new discovery – and a yogurt
type desert. Both small. The rice was nice. You expected me to say that if you
know that I like to take tinned rice off camping in NZ.

Well I had intended to head out again, but with the 9C and falling, the hint of
rain and the warmth of the hostel – I have stayed in and got the blog done
early than usual. It is now only 8:45pm and in NZ I guess the grandchildren are
getting ready to go to school and in the UK which is an hour behind me, Robyn
could well be having a late dinner.