Gdansk, Poland, did not impress me much. But it’s been through a lot too. It’s where WWII got started when Germany started shelling the port. It was bombed out for the next six years and then occupied by Soviets for the following 45. And although many of the cities we’ve visited over the past two weeks were devastated during WWII, Gdansk appears to never have completely recovered. Sure, a lot has been reconstructed, but there are still a lot of bombed out brick buildings. And the buildings that have been put up since are unimaginative Soviet concrete cubes. Although hot and a resort town, it still seemed dreary, almost depressing. The cab drivers we spoke to didn’t speak much English, but they said life has been much better the past 20 years. So I guess that has to be taken into consideration before saying Poland is a downer- things had been much worse under the Soviet regime.

You may have noticed a lack of posts. This is due to cruising. Yes, cheap Matt and Joylani are on a cruise. As if going from regular life to living from one backpack, cheap hotels and cold showers wasn’t enough, we agreed to make the transition even more drastic by going on a family vacation before we depart on our “real trip.” We are going out with a bang! In truly indulgent style, I have been going out on port days to explore the cities we stop at, and when on the ship I eat lots of dessert (warm peach halves stuffed with almond soufflé, kiwi frozen yogurt, tiramisu, hazelnut ice cream, and lots of cookies). Instead of pushing myself to write or take part in on-board activities, I sleep and veg out in front of the tv (British news with delayed sound, movies, and information on the next port. I try to avoid the propaganda from the ship’s channel that always seems to be trying to get the passenger to purchase “authentic items” form the on-board boutiques rather than risk buying a fake from other places.). Going in the elevator is always fun, I am usually the youngest by at least 30-40 years. Life is grand, and the great part is that since this is a Baltic Sea cruise, and not many people have been to the Baltic region, we are all seeing the new sights and experiencing new places for the first time all together. Instead of sharing the experience between two people, there are eight of us from three generations. Each individual shares a different perspective on the sights we are seeing, making the new experiences even richer. I will have a recap of all the places we’ve been so far in the next week or too, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, more on cruise life…As I mentioned before, Matt and I lost a piece of luggage containing mostly items for the cruise. I was able to pick up a few pieces of clothing in Denmark before we got on board, but for the most part we’ve been recycling outfits while the other cruisers appear to be changing clothes at least twice a day. Luckily, there are laundry facilities on-board, so I was able to wash all our clothes last night. Matt and I were stuck wearing the few clean items that we had left until our laundry was done. For me, this meant aloha print board shorts, green raincoat, and pink Chacos. Matt was wearing his hiking boots, board shorts, and a button-up shirt. This wasn’t too much of a problem since we just stayed in the room while we waited for the laundry to finish, but then came time to get the clothes from the dryer. When we walked into the laundry room we were met by 3 pairs of staring eyes. Were they upset from having to wait on our dryer? No, our dryer hadn’t shut off yet. It must be something else, I thought. Raincoat, board shorts, hiking boots…I started laughing as we left the laundry, realizing that our outfits must have seemed a little out of place on the ship’s formal night!