Gdańsk Baywatch Weekend! July 8-10

This was my second IAESTE pre-planned weekend and this time I went north to basically the Baltic Coast- Gdańsk, Poland. It was nice to return to an IAESTE weekend and meet up with many of the friends I made a few weeks ago in Wroclaw. The łódź crew keeps growing! Ha there had to be over 20 people from there this weekend! Ha, they claim it is because there is nothing to do in łódź and they all want to get the heck out! ;p But they are a fun group, so I’m glad I got to see them again, since I didn’t know if I would see some of them before our internships ended. 

Old friend from the łódź crew

Unfortunately for Baywatch weekend we didn’t exactly win the lottery for weather. Saturday morning/afternoon when we were at the beach for 3.5 hours it was windy, cloudy, cool, and sometimes even raining. Not exactly the weather that makes me want to sit outside in a bikini…lol Some people in the group though were very brave and decided to go for a swim. Sadly when they came out of the water, many of them said they were so cold they said their limbs were numb. Because it wasn’t exactly warm weather many of them struggled to warm up after swimming. I’m glad I decided to join a group that was simply chilling on the beach and then spent some time in a cafe with some tea to warm me up and pass the time! 

Beach on the not-so-perfect day

After the beach we went back to the dorms for lunch and then left for the city center for “Lost in Gdansk.” This was a team game which reminded me of a mini version of “The Amazing Race.” We had a letter which contained a list of places to visit, a map of where they were, and at each place we met a member of the Local IAESTE Committee that had a group challenge for us. We zipped through the challenges that were given to us, so we had extra time to walk around the Old Town and sightsee now that the weather had improved and the sun broke through the clouds! 

Of course there is a Hard Rock in Gdansk too

Ferris wheel in Gdansk

View of the city

Pano view

One of the perks of a weekend with essentially all engineers was the engineering jokes that ensued. First, our team leader had seriously the best engineering t-shirt ever invented! For anyone who is currently studying engineering or has completed their studies I’m sure you can attest to the validity of these statements! Secondly, one of my friends told me the greatest Aerospace Engineering joke that i’ve heard-“5 professors board a plane, then they learn that their students were responsible for making the aircraft. Immediately 4 of the professors go into panic, trying to leave the plane because they feared the aircraft would crash and they would die if it was indeed made by their students. They turned to the last professor and asked him how he could be so calm? His response,’ I know my students very well. I am confident that this plan will not get off the ground.’” hahaha 

Best.shirt.ever

Like a typical IAESTE weekend, it would not be complete without an excessive amount of partying involved… Apparently the BBQ ended with very drunk individuals that had rough Saturday mornings, but don’t worry there would be Saturday night for a repeat. This time though, the IAESTE committee rented out a student pub for our private event so it was just us in the club. It was a fun time though to dance and go clubbing with a bunch of friends from quite literally all over the world! One thing that will never change though for a Polish party is they all end with the same beginning to the stories—> “things were fine until they brought out the vodka”. haha my friend’s team won the Lost in Gdansk challenge and their gift was a bottle of vodka and sour gummy worms. I originally thought this was an interesting gift, like maybe vodka for those that like to drink and candy for those that don’t. This assumption was incorrect. The vodka they gave was a hard one that literally made you feel like you were on fire from the inside out, so you’d have a gummy worm or two afterwards to help calm your digestive track. haha sorry if I’ve changed your gummy worm association. After a while in the club I had some friends that were looking very tired, so we agreed to “head back early.” Personally, I wouldn’t really consider 2am that early, but when compared to the people not leaving until 5:30 or later, then I guess it was early! 

Good people = good time

Just dancing :) 

Enjoyed having different styles of music. Not being a techno fan, changing back to Spanish music was enjoyable. 

Sunday morning was pretty interesting series of events that were generally not appreciated by most—> 1 the local committee had blow horns and were running through the dorm blowing the horns on each floor, yelling and then blowing horns and knocking on your door until you opened up at 9:30ish because that was the start time for breakfast. That would be all fine if when I left for breakfast a few minutes later, the food was actually there. When I got to the area of breakfast and saw everyone just sitting outside an asked where breakfast was, the response I got was “The diver got drunk last night at the club, so it may be a bit longer for breakfast” My comment was “you mean the driver is still drunk this morning…” You may be thinking I am simply exaggerating things here folks, but I promise you I’m not. If there is one thing that happens at these planned weekends it is parties. I spoke to a handful of people Sunday morning that said they woke up drunk that morning… I think it was worse for the people that I know got drunk on the beach and because of that spent the entire time during Lost in Gdansk taking a nap but still went hard Saturday night. I think its because alcohol is so cheap here though that students can purchase lots of hard liquor, get drunk, and still have enough money to pay for rent and food that they can afford to party hard. 

Once breakfast came we did start our day and sightsee around the Old Town in Gdansk. This time they actually did hire a guide or someone that at least knew a lot of the history of the city and landmarks to lead the tour. So we walked around Gdansk and learned a few things along the way :) Unfortunately there was a significant amount of miss-communication about what to do with our luggage and it turned out that we had to be back to the dorm to remove our bags by 2pm, so after our tour we had to head back to get our things. Since my train wasn’t until 7pm, we simply got our bags and then went back to Old Town to have lunch, get some souvenirs, and enjoy the city as again the sun had broken out after the brief rain around 1pm. 

Just so fluffy! 

Flashback to when I was a junior rotarian for the Maple Grove, MN chapter! 

Polish pancakes with salad for lunch

The armory

So I also didn’t pre-book a train back to Warsaw, which meant there was a decent amount of confusion as I was searching for Polish friends from Warsaw that were going to be meeting me at the station to purchase a ticket a board together. The line was absolutely ridiculous though, and we didn’t have time to wait before our train would be at the station. So we boarded anyways, found seats, and then found the ticket inspector to purchase tickets on board. For anyone that knows me, not having great cell service to connect and find my friends, coupled with not having tickets nor knowing that there was an option to buy tickets when you boarded, meant that I was a little bit anxious at the station. Once we got settled on-board though I was finally able to relax which was nice. I’m seriously re-considering my decision to wait to purchase a train ticket for the day of as recommended  now for the following weekend. The one good thing I will say is that I paid about half I did for the ticket to get to Gdansk by paying the day of and using a different company. So we will see what I end up doing next weekend in Krakow. 

Open land- goodbye Gdansk.