I Wanna Gdansk With Somebody....

Every time D gets a day off I know he secretly wishes he could spend it on the couch playing Xbox (or Nintendo as I call every gaming system ever created) or laying in bed catching up on TV shows. Of course, instead, he selflessly succumbs to my desire to travel the country and we always end up taking a road trip somewhere.

There's an area North of us on the Baltic Sea called the TriCity area. It's made up of three cities: Gdansk, Sopot and Gydnia, which are all located just a few minutes apart and sit on the coast with a population of over a million people. I've heard Gdansk is the prettiest city in Poland so naturally I've been wanting to visit. If the Polish people wanted to make any of our lives easier, they would spell it DONSK, as that is how the word is pronounced. For some reason, I can't find it in me to drop the G and continue to refer to it as "Ga-dansk", as it looks. 

Gdansk is an easy two hour car ride away from us and we spent it taking turns replacing "Gdansk" with the word "dance" in popular songs. After two hours of "I Wanna Gdansk With Somebody", "Just Gdansk", "You Make Me Feel Like Gdansk'n" and "Tiny Gdansk'er" we had finally arrived in this beautiful town.

I was in complete awe over how gorgeous this city was. It was so different than anywhere else I'd ever been before. Never in a million years would I think to visit Gdansk, Poland before moving here, but it is easily just as stunning as some of the most famous places I've been around Europe. Everyone we met was so friendly, too. There were a ton of foreigners in Gdansk and I didn't get the constant stare downs from people in the streets like I have "AMERICAN" tattooed on my face as I get when walking around our town. It was quite refreshing. After walking through Gdansk's Old Town, we got back in the car and drove to the next town over, Sopot.

Gorgeous Old Town

Sopot is a smaller, resort-style town right on the beach with a long pier for people to walk on. It's a really cute, quaint, town with a lot of cool shopping, restaurants and nightlife. Sopot is famous for this "Crooked House" built in the middle of the shopping area. I don't know much about it except that it looks cool and the guy who built it was almost certainly on mushrooms. Nonetheless, it made for a great photo op.

We had such an amazing day exploring this area and can't wait to go back. I feel so lucky that we can just jump in the car and drive to all these cool places and I can't wait for our next adventure.

In other news, I've started mentally preparing myself for Thanksgiving. It's my absolute favorite holiday and I want to make sure D's American teammates all enjoy it since they can't be with their own families. My grocery shopping experience is probably a bit different than most people at home. Sure, usually you make your list and may have to go to a few stores to find all your ingredients, but my preparation requires quite a bit more steps. First, I write down everything in English that I need. Then I translate these words into Polish, if they aren't simple enough to spot just by looking at them. It's then necessary to convert any recipes in cups/oz to ml and grams. Thankfully I don't use recipes, except when baking, because honestly I've never been too good at the math there. To really prepare myself for this shopping endeavor, I have also "google imaged" pictures of some of the products that I need that will be more difficult to find so that I'm not whipping out my iPhone in an attempt to show the grocery store person what a Pecan looks like. Here's an example of how part of my shopping list looks this year:

One of most difficult aspects of Thanksgiving Preparation is figuring out the logistics of everything. This becomes quite a bit more complicated with a European size oven the size of my childhood Easy Bake. In my fairytale mind, I had envisioned myself making friends with all the neighbors by Thanksgiving, and simply thought I could ask them to use their ovens in addition to my own.  Hey, maybe I would even invite them to attend their first Thanksgiving Dinner?In reality, I have still yet to even see any of my neighbors besides the one woman who didn't speak English and still managed to yell at me for taking my dog out behind our apartment. Somehow I'll have to make do on my own.

This week's edition of  "Is This Real Life" came when D and I walked to this coffee shop by our house. He ordered us two cappuccinos and a pastry for himself and we sat down at a table until they were ready. There were only 1-2 other people in this coffee shop at the time and after a few minutes, the barista yelled something to Deividas in which we assumed she was telling us our coffee was ready. He took the two coffees from her and told her he was still waiting on his pastry. She then went and gave him his donut and he brought the coffees to our table and we started to drink them. Moments later, the lady was at our table telling us that the drinks we were having, weren't in fact ours. I told her it was no problem, that we would drink them anyways and not to worry about. Little did I know she wasn't worried about our satisfaction, whatsoever. She continued to yell at Deividas for taking the coffees (keep in mind, she gave them to him in the first place) and then said we would have to go pay the difference as these cost more than the cappuccinos we ordered! Coming from the land of Starbucks where your drink is free if it's too hot or too cold, we were shocked. She said it wasn't her fault we didn't speak Polish and I had to take a moment to myself to do some mental meditations so I wouldn't say something I might regret. Eventually we got to a point where we laughed it off but I still couldn't believe that happened. (Side note: The overwhelming majority of Polish people have been really nice to us, customer service is just completely different than what we're accustomed to).

I will continue spending my week preparing for Thanksgiving and hopefully finding all my ingredients. The other day in the grocery store, an older woman came up to me when I was getting sweet potatoes and asked me a question (I'm assuming about the sweet potatoes because they aren't as popular here). I told her I only speak English and she giggled and gave me a hug. I'm hoping my grocery store experiences this week have a lot of those type of encounters and less of what I experienced in the coffee shop :)

Polish Pedicures and Other Weird Things...

I've yet to have a successful pedicure in Europe. In fact, I've yet to even go through with a pedicure over here without walking (or running) out before they could get started. My first attempt was in Riga, Latvia where D and I walked into a place that said "pedikuras" on the window. After trying to describe what we wanted to the receptionist, she eventually lead us down a small, narrow hallway into a 6'x6' "room" with a dentist chair and some power tools. I immediately gave D the "lets get the hell out of here" stare and the woman asked us who wanted to go first. Deividas is good at many things, but going along with me when I am lying to get out of an awkward situation, is not one of them. I whipped out my cell phone and pretended I got an emergency text and had to leave and D just gave me back a blank stare and volunteered me to go first. I told the woman I had to reschedule and made a run for it.

Since then, I guess you could say I've stayed clear of pedicures. It's the first thing I do whenever I go home and the last thing I do before I leave. I've also somewhat mastered the art of in-home pedicures  for those times in between. So, when Deividas came home from practice yesterday and told me he made us pedicure appointments, I was more than slightly concerned. 

We arrive at the spa this afternoon and are greeted at the door by two young women wearing all white medical uniforms. They lead us up the stairs and into a room cut in half by a divider. One side had your typical dentist chair, and the other, a normal American-style pedicure chair. One of the women instructed D to sit down in the dentist chair and I simultaneously exhaled a sigh of relief and stuffed my jacket over my face so they couldn't see how hard I was laughing. I walked over to my side and realized it wasn't much better. Sure the chair looked normal but the set of tools sitting next to it didn't scream "this is going to be a relaxing experience" to me. The woman began taking off my old polish and told me my feet were "beautiful,  immediately leading me to question what type of services my husband had signed me up for. I took the remote control in my hand to start my chair massage and quickly learned it was broken and that these two knobs would be stuck in my back for the remainder of this experience. It wasn't until the two women exchanged a few words in Polish, having me wonder if they were discussing my dry feet or polish choice, that I finally felt at home. 

Just imagine D in here..hehehehe

my "sanctuary"

I promise you, this really isn't a doctor's office..

So although my pedicure experience more closely resembled a trip to the doctor than a relaxing spa oasis, I walked out of there with some great looking feet. The pedicurist was an absolute doll and although she didn't speak English, I will pretend she knew exactly what she was saying when she called my feet beautiful. Of course I miss American pedicures, but to be honest, it was refreshing not to be asked if "I have boyfriend" or if "I want diamond on my nail" for once. 

Another quite interesting experience happened when Deividas was at practice last week. We live right next door to a huge church with a seminary and convent attached. I heard a loud noise coming outside so I opened my window to see what it was.  Our street is usually pretty quite so I didn't think twice about sticking my torso outside the window to see what was going on, even if I just had a sports bra on from working out. What's the worst thing that could happen when you are hanging out your window in a sports bra, you may ask? How about a Catholic Parade of over 1,000 Priests & Nuns, chanting bible verses down the street with candles...at night...in the dark. How do things like this happen to me, and always when Deividas isn't home.

Click here to watch the video of this on my Instagram

In other news, D's team has had some really unfortunate injuries so far and he has had to fill in and play starting Point Guard (he has only played Shooting Guard for the passed 6+ years) . Regardless, his team ended up winning Wednesday night and he was the leading scorer. I'm so proud of him :) 

After Wednesday's Game

My mom just sent me a huge package filled with all kinds of things including some Thanksgiving decor so I am getting ready to host Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans on the team. I'm sure it'll be interesting :) I understand Poland doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving but I wish they'd cool their jets a little when it comes to displaying Christmas decor this early. They've even started playing Christmas music in the grocery stores.  I'll continue to ignore it and pretend everyone else around here is just as excited for Thanksgiving as I am. Happy November!

Couldn't resist this beautiful sunset out our window the other night...

Halloween...Kinda

Since arriving in Poland I’ve been optimistic about the country’s feelings on Halloween celebrations based on the numerous carved pumpkins scattered throughout our city. Before leaving Vilnius, Deividas and I decided to carve pumpkins one night and put them outside our door to spread the October cheer with our neighbors. Our cleaning lady proceeded to throw them out the following day and I’m not sure if I was more offended that she thought our pumpkins looked like trash or that she thought I would leave random garbage outside in the first place. In their quick stint as decorations outside our door, our pumpkins brought many smiles to our neighbors and even more questions about why they existed. Needless to say pumpkin carving isn’t an old pastime in Lithuania.

So you can see why the frequent carved pumpkin sightings in Poland excited me. I immediately started brainstorming what I would be for Halloween and wondered what what type of candy to buy for my little Polish trick or treaters. After some research I discovered Halloween wasn’t quite as big as I thought here...or at least the version that I’m used to. In America, Halloween is synonymous with girls dressing scandalously, heavy alcohol consumption and as a result, a drastic decline in morality. In college, every girl would wear the exact same micro-dress pattern manufactured in a multitude of designs, representing everything from a “sexy cat”  to “a “seductive Starbucks barista”.

In Poland, everyone has off work on October 31st and November 1st to celebrate the Catholic Holiday “All Saints Day”. This is a rather somber holiday where they pay tribute to the dead by bringing flowers and candles to the cemeteries that hold their loved ones.  Needless to say, there were not going to be any little Polish trick or treaters to pass out candy to. Upset that I wouldn’t be dressing up or attending a Halloween Party in my usual fashion, I did the next logical thing.. made Deividas get in the car and drive me to the cemetery. Now, I must preface this by saying I meant no disrespect by this. I take cemeteries and dead people just as serious as every other Catholic, but I was genuinely intrigued by this holiday and wanted to feel like I was a part of the action. Let me tell you, I was not disappointed. Outside of the cemetery there were hundreds of vendors selling every type of flower arrangement and candle imaginable. It was so beautiful. Additionally, some stands were selling what appeared to be a dozen bagel-like pastries tied together by a string (some people were walking around with these around their necks or swinging them by their hands). Still not sure the significance here, but I’ll do my research and get back to you. Against Deividas’ will, we entered the cemetery and had a look around. There must have been over 3,000 people inside just this cemetery and there were flowers and candles EVERYWHERE. It was incredible. After stating my desire to buy some flowers for the few graves sites that didn’t have any, Deividas told me I was being weird and that we should probably get going. I bought a bouquet of flowers for our house on my way out, making me the only person there walking away from the cemetery with flowers.

The grocery store selling things for All Saints Day 

Vendors outside the cemetery selling flowers

Just one small ally of the huge cemetery

The "bagels" on strings...

All Saints Day is a pretty neat holiday if you think about it. Sure, it’s a bit creepy but it’s nice to take one day out of the year to officially remember and pay tribute to those you’ve lost. I know I said my prayers for those special people of mine. 

In other news, we have finally moved into our apartment! We’ve been living in a temporary apartment until the family moved out of our new place so it feels good to be finally situated! Deividas’ dad is driving over to visit for his game on Sunday and I’m so excited to see him! 

Our New Apartment 

Exploring the park behind our house

Out our window at night

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween, All Saints Day, or whatever you celebrate :)