09.15.19

09.15.19

Hello friends and family! I would like to apologize for the delay of posts. My blog went down and I had to get some technical support from my wonderful sister Bailey. My posts are in porocess but will be delayed so make sure to look at the dates when reading the posts until I can get caught up!
Today was my first day off the ship. We docked in Gdansk, Poland early this morning and a lot of people woke up early to see us pull into port. It was very exciting, as all of us were ready to start our first adventure. Poland has a law that all US citizens must carry their passports with them at all time while in country, so I had to go get my passport early this morning from the student union. I was called first to receive my passport because I had a field class today. If you don’t know what a field class is I think it can be described as a field trip almost. Each class you take has one field class. My first one is in Poland but my other two are in Portugal and Croatia.

After I got my passport I went to the top deck and had some coffee. I walked out to the deck and looked around. My first impression of Poland was not too extravagant but I tried to remember that we are in a shipping port. HA! I met with my class in the classroom and we all walked off the ship. The second we hit land everyone felt very strange. We all felt as if we were still rocking from the ship. It is interesting trying to get your “Land Legs” back. My class loaded onto a tour bus and it brought us into old town Gdansk. Once we reached the city we bundled up and started walking though town towards our first stop, the WWII Museum. My first impression of the town was much better than the port we had docked in. The city is cute with colorful buildings and a charm about it. We reached the museum and had a 3 hour guided tour. The information was very interesting but I think 3 hours was a little much and a little intense with the content at hand.

After the museum we walked back into town to grab lunch by the canal. They served us a traditional Polish meal starting with a yummy tomato soup. The second course was a salad… I went to dive in and found a giant black fly dead inside. Yes….a fly! My appetite was ruined. Luckily when we reached the bus again I remembered that I had packed snacks. Thank god! The bus then drove is to the Stuttof concentration camp. The second we stepped off the bus I felt a feeling come over me of sadness and mourning. During the entire tour everyone was pretty much dead silent. It was definitely a difficult life changing experience but I am glad I got to see it. When we left the concentration camp the bus brought us back to the ship. I took a taxi to my Airbnb to meet up with the girls I was staying with! The place we rented was very cute and in the perfect location. We all had some wine and got dressed to go explore the town’s night life. We ended up at a little saloon called White Rabbit and then went to a club that was next store. The club was filled with all SASers and it was definitely a good time! Tomorrow we will explore more of old town Gdansk!

Bon Voyage,

Christian