Gdańsk aka: Danzig

This is my favorite city in Poland ( dont tell that to my family!)

I live near this town :) and I have grandma in Gdansk :)

It’s a wonderfull place!

I only found the painting the Last Judgement by Memling several months ago through Google answer… and it’s weird to see it here again! I lived in Gdnask for a few years when I was younger, and I don’t remember if we went to the museum to actually see this or if it was on a postcard (although I have a feeling I may have seen it live) but it made such a strong impression on me, and I saw it again 15 years later! My memories of Poland are actually pretty vivid—even though I was very young. I can even recall smells, and sounds and colours because I guess you are very impressionable at that age. One thing that I remember in particular is going through some sort of woods in the afternoon to get to the beach where we would walk for hours. And the swans…! And our neighbors… The daycare… the hospital… the market, the buildings, the churches… the old women selling fruit… I heard from someone who went back later that it has changed a lot. But nonetheless, I’d love to go back, I’d love to find those people, I’d love to see this city which has almost become a dream entity to me.

I remember arriving in Gdansk on a train from Zakopane…the amber, I remember a lot of amber…and the sculpture, the markets by the dock, and a nightclub that wouldn’t let me in because i had jeans on….in the middle of the afternoon…and there was a bar, with no beer, but endless vodka…queues for bread in the mornings….stayed in Gdynia, caught the ferry to the hel peninsula, swam in freezing water…looking at russia across the bay. Squeezed in the last ferry home….

Because I read Guenther Grass’ “Die Blechtrommel” (the tin drum) and loved it.