Coming from ultra clean consumer driven Stockholm to the somewhat dilapidated Polish town of Gdansk was a bit of a shock. I arrived in town via a hot pink Wizzair Plane that was cram packed with polish tourists and was running rather late, so late that even the air stewardesses seemed nervous. But then, what can you expect from a very cheap flight that has "Wizz" in the title!
I immediately felt happy to be in Poland....meeting up with my parents was fun. They told me the adventures they have had in Spain and before I knew it we headed into town for very cheap sauasges and dumplings with the radio blasting the kind of bad 80s music that they seem to love in poland.

Gdansk is full of old brick buildings and unique town houses build long ago by merchants that used gdansk as a trading town. Unlike scandinavia there isnt enough money put into restoring plenty of the buildings so you really get a a sense of how old the buildings are...some are falling apart and seem ravaged by time. They are alot more interesting to photograph because of that. After going for a walk around the old part of town and looking through many amber jewellery shops (they have a fantastic amount of handcrafted amber there), we went to a cafe on the main street. I was so engrossed in talking photos of the nearby fountain and chowing down that I barely noticed Bjork standing a few meters from us. She was with her kid and some family friends and was obviously just hanging around in the sunshine seeing the sights like us. Some girls asked her for an autograph but she refused and looked quite annoyed. I tried to get some photos of her inconspiciously, as I clearly remember the footage of her on e news beating up a photographer. Plus I think its rather rude going up to celebrities and bothering them on their holiday.

After hanging out in gdansk for 2 days and basking in the glory of all the great ridicously cheap food (you can get a loaf of good quality bread for 10c if you know where to look), we drove along the hilly and partially forested roads of northern poland. We drove to Malbork and checked out the massive castle built by the teutonic knights and then spent the next night in Bialowieza, the gateway to Bialowieza Forest which is a UNSECO protected primeval forest. It was difficult getting access the the forest-you had to cycle there since there was no car access and it was too far to walk to get into the forest. Also, they are very strict about where you go in the forest since there are certain places that no people are allowed at all. There are even patrolling vans with armed guards in them, since the town is 4km or less from the border of Belarus and hence a potential place for illegal border crossings.

The weather was very terrible-cold and raining so we visited the animal reserve and surrounding forest. The reserve contains many bull-like Bison, which they breed there and later the bison are released into the wild. They had a heap of other animals there too- 2 packs of wolves, different types of deer,moose, horses, wild boars and even a lynx, which I have always wanted to see- it looked like a mini tiger or very big weird looking cat.

We have now been in warsaw for a few days and have been to the national art gallery(great Mucha exhibition and lots of famous polish painters), to many shops and seen films since they don't dubb englsih movies. The rainy weather has follwed us, all the way from Stockholm actually. I have am sick again which is a bit of a bummer, but at least I have been here before so I don't mind seeing less and going at a somewhat slower pace. My last day in stockholm was a crazy rush-I had the stockholm card and went to so many museums and on a boat ride and even went to stockholm university to listen to rufus wainwright play in concert at Accelerator. I just sat next to the concert tent and listened, to avoid paying the 600 swedish kroner entry fee. I realized the day before that we were only 2 tram stops away from the festival site.

I have been hunting for english reading material here and new music. Empik and Traffic have a pretty good selection, though I can't find a book I particularly want to read. Maybe I will just wait for the new harry potter book which comes out soon.

I will be going to my parents home town next- Przemysl.
I will post a blog from there next.