I feel terribly uncouth and totally under-dressed. These women here walk on cobblestones in heels. HIGH heels. And then there’s me with my sensible walking shoes (read: hiking boots). I can’t walk in heels even on a regular smooth sidewalk, and just imagining the ordeal of walking on cobblestones gives me instant foot and back pain. I’ll stick to my hiking boots and nevermind the dirty looks I got in a shoe store today (where I was trying on more hiking boots.)

The churches here are indeed massive. There are more of them than 20 years ago, and they are indeed everywhere. Now, don’t get me wrong. I adore churches. But only pretty, old churches. These are ugly clunks of concrete that make me want to drip battery acid into my eyes. Not only don’t I want to enter one, I don’t even want to be near one.

And my favorite old church (Bazylika Mariacka aka St Mary’s church) in Gdańsk is wrapped in a nasty scaffolding – the renovations are supposed to take two years, as I’ve been told. Actually, a lot of Gdańsk seems to be wrapped in scaffoldings. There’s either construction or renovation work going on everywhere.

The Old City (Stare Miasto) didn’t look as pretty as I had remembered it as a child. It’s still very beautiful but it no longer has that mysterious, magical quality. Now it’s full of bars with ugly awnings and shops and stands selling overpriced amber jewelry. I was unable to find even one shop that catered to a “normal” tourist. You know, the kind of person who wants a couple of t-shirts, a book and a tacky souvenir. When I did find a place that sold t-shirts, they were too gaudy even for me, which should tell you a lot.

I stopped by at the tourist office about five minutes before closing time, but the lady there didn’t mind one bit. She gave me the scoop on all events going on in the city, told me her life story and discussed the American election with me. She also mentioned that the sky-high and still rising rents are forcing many old businesses out of Stare Miasto. “It’s all for tourists now with prices that only tourists can afford to pay.” That’s a curious sentiment coming from a woman who works at the tourist office, wouldn’t you say?

I looked for the Bar Mleczny that Isabella mentioned in her comment to the previous post. I think I knew where it used to be – on the left side in that little hole-in-the-wall quasi-street behind the Neptune fountain, right? There’s a dull and boring café there now. In fact, there are dull and boring cafés now everywhere. And dull and overpriced restaurants. Actually, those restaurants deserve a post of their own.

But the people were nice. Unfailingly nice and helpful. And smiling. Poles abroad (and many foreigners, too) tend to complain about the quality of service in Poland. About the boorishness of people. About the sour expressions of women selling bus tickets. About office clerks in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

I haven’t really experiences ANY of it. So, either the alien invasion of pod people has begun, or this is a secret government experiment, or something in the Tri-City (Trójmiasto = Gdańsk+Sopot+Gdynia) water supply, but people were smiling and so obliging it made me feel a bit strange at times. Even “moherowe berety” were friendly and helpful. One was so worried about my ability (or lack thereof) to find my way, she actually rode the bus with me and told me where to get off. (Or maybe it was the fact that when asking her for directions I said “cmentarz” – cemetery, when I actually meant “szpital” – hospital, don’t ask me what I was thinking – I don’t know.)

I had to pay a visit to City Hall in Gdynia and everyone there was so patient with me and so accommodating, that it felt almost otherworldly. At the Era mobile phone shop I bargained with the sales lady and got a phone for half the price (because it was a discontinued model anyway) and I even talked her into unlocking it for me. At a restaurant I ordered a Greek salad, but without onions, olives and feta cheese, and the waiter said “no problem, would you like to replace them with other vegetables perhaps?”

The cars came to a sometimes screeching halt when I began to exhibit even the slightest signs of wanting to cross the street. I was surprised by that. I’ve read time and time again that no one stops for anyone in the old country. And since I’m not a ravishing beauty (I’m a dork in hiking boots) and since I was fully clothed when prancing around Tri-City (the two obvious reasons why drivers might want to stop for a woman crossing the street), they’ve either learned to stop for pedestrians very recently, or I have the ability to control people’s minds and don’t even know it.

I really don’t have any reasons to complain except two: KFC here doesn’t taste like KFC should, it’s so bad it makes me gag (I’m a junk food connoisseur, with KFC being my particular field of expertise) and the stench of cigarettes everywhere makes me gag even more.