More communication breakdown in Eastern Europe. Perhaps it might make sense to start using this phone I have been carrying around in the bottom of my bag for the past month?

So... I was heading to Gdansk, Poland to see my good friend's Sylwia and Michau and their daughter Hania. I had been on the fence, but figured that since I was so close, it would be a shame not to go see them. I had to postpone my journey out there by a day after my fiasco getting locked out in Prague and having to walk the streets, so I told Syl that I would be making my way out there on Monday 10.22 instead of Sunday. On Monday morning I got up early and went to the train station expecting a pretty long day of travel, and booked a train from Prague to Gdansk, connecting through Berlin. I figured I would book the travel then shoot Sylwia a note telling here the schedule. To my dismay, finding wifi in the Prague train station proved difficult... but minutes before departure I grabbed the signal at Burger King (don’t worry, I didn’t eat anything there...) and fired off a couple of notes telling Syl the details of travel:

·       The ticket I purchased was for the Gydinia Glowny station

·       I was due to get into Gydinia Glowny at 10:30

·       I was connecting through Berlin arriving at 2:30, and leaving at 3:30...

There is no wifi on the trains... or if there is, I don’t have access to it (or don’t know how to use it...). The train was slow as hell and took five hours instead of four. The hour that I figured I would have at the Haubtbanhoff in Berlin, the hour I would use to check in with Sylwia, disintegrated and I had to sprint for the connection to Gdansk. I jumped on the train as it was just pulling out of the station. The train into Poland was even slower. We pulled into the Gdansk Main Station, the Gdansk Glowny, around midnight. Hmmmm.... so glowney means main station... was this the station I should get off at? I knew that they lived in Gdansk, so what was this Gydinia business?

I talked to the girl in my cabin, and it turns out Gydinia was a beach resort town about a half an hour up the road. What should I do? I had told Syl I would be going through to Gydinia, but they lived here in Gdansk.... The train was stopped for about ten minutes, so I jumped off and looked around for Sylwia. No sign of her or Michau. I figured it was best to play it safe and continue on to Gydinia, thinking they might be there to meet me. I was still concerned though as the train pulled out of the station. At the next stop, I was able to get a wifi signal for a very brief second, bit it was long enough to see three unfortunate words... “TWO UNSENT MESSAGES”.

FUCK!!!

The notes, the information, the coordination I had sent to Syl in the morning never went through! What should I do??? Now I positive that they weren’t in Gydinia waiting for me. So I grabbed my stuff very quickly and jumped off the train, just as it was leaving this suburban Gdansk station... Luckily I was able to immediately catch a train heading back in the direction I had just come from. I got off at Gdansk Glowny and tried to put a plan together. It was now around 11:45pm. I needed to get some internet and shoot Syl a note to see if she was still up and wondering what the hell I was doing. She probably just thought I flaked out and stayed in Prague.... but I was here... in Gdansk... and she had no idea!

I went over to a bar near the station but they didn’t have wifi. There was a hotel nearby, so I went on in, explained the situation, and the kind woman at the reception desk gave me the password for their wifi... I sent Syl and Michau a note and figured I would give it twenty minutes. I wasn’t too optimistic... It was past midnight now and these guys have a four year old. I assumed they were probably in bed. So I started to play out my other options. The hotel where I was using the wifi was 300zl a night, roughly $100. That was a little steep for me. So I got out the guidebook and saw there were a number of hostels in the old town (probably built for the recent Euro cup). The woman gave me a map and pointed me in the direction of old town, and at about 12:45am I pulled up to the Dom Zachariasza Zappio hostel. Luckily someone was there to answer the door and check me in. So I got a room, a beer, and an internet password and sent Syl a note apologizing for the inconvenience and telling here where I was.... then I went to bed.

In the morning there was a note waiting for me! Syl would come by to pick me up at 12:30 and we would head back to their place... it all worked out... and the hostel I stayed in was about twenty meters from the church where Sylwia and Michau were married.