13th of August 2019

When waking up, I was feeling a bit stuck and restless for the first time on my travel, and went on to share the local work-out park with the children of the neighbourhood again. (edit: I am a bit longer on my travel now and I see those work out parks exist everywhere – and people use them – a free outdoor gym. I love it.)

This bit of activity fueled me for the adventures of the day and met up with Nick (from the days before) at Gdansks ¨Solidarity¨ Museum – ¨Solidarity¨, was the movement, which symbolizes the Polish revolution against the Soviet reign and also formed Polands first reigning party after Poland gained independence in 1989. 

The Museum was simply amazing and showcased the hardship of the Polish people in a great mutli-media experience. But more than that it presented how one little incident can form a belief and how which eventually becomes strong enough to change the impossible.

The museum also gave me a different perspective of the Soviet Union itself, since I learned almost only about the Soviet reign in Eastern Germany, when I was in school. 

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I left the museum with a feeling of admiration and respect for a country which has overcome a long time of sorrow – in a peaceful revolution – and since then accomplished the extraordinary for the fact that it is only independent for 30 years – something I often forget when thinking or talking about many Eastern European countries. 

After we left the museum we realised, that the visit took us much longer than expected and eventually Nick and me were quite short in time in order to join Jessica (a girl from California which I met at the hostel) for a free open air concert, so we decided to get a kebab on the hand instead of sitting down somewhere to eat something (I had to leave my dream of Polish dumplings behind).

This was the moment when I experienced the biggest culture shock of my travels up to that moment. For those who don`t know, Germany has a quite big Kebab culture. And when I bit in my Kebab I was tasting a familiar sour taste in my mouth, which did not seem to belong in there at all. 

When I looked at the Kebab in my hands I had to shuckle. In Poland – the pickle capital of the world – pickles just belong in and on everything. Even in a Kebab (edit: It was actually not bad, but just something I was not used to and did not expect.)

Afterwards we went on to join Jessica at the open air concert, which was a lot of fun and had a great atmosphere.

We ended the day by checking out some pubs in Gdansk – most of which were already closed though. In our last bar I also met Felix from Austria, who would travel (surprise surprise) to Vilnius the next day and booked not only the same bus but even the same hostel as me (and the same room as we should find out later). Great – I already found my next travel-buddy.