Edd's Travels: September 2019

If you think 'Gdansk' is a difficult one to pronounce, be advised that my local train station here is called 'Wrzeszcz'.

This is where my 2019 blog ends. (Don't all burst into tears at once). I'm not going home just yet, but I will be soon, and anyway my camera appears to have stopped working. I really don't expect you all to read my waffle without the compensating benefit of a few pretty pictures. Nor do I have any confidence about getting my camera fixed in a foreign country where I don't speak the language. It's a fair bet that they'd charge me 250 zlotys for an 'inspection fee', after which they'd put it in a cupboard for 24 hours and then tell me it can't be repaired.

Also I've decided to discontinue the tradition of ending each blog with a 'homecoming' picture, because otherwise Sunderland will always be the first thing people see on my blog when I'm between trips. It doesn't exactly lure people in.

Gdansk is nice. Nothing to write home about. Some significant history to do with World War 2 and the Solidarity trade union movement of 40-odd years ago. Further north up the coast are Sopot and Gdynia, nice seaside towns, bathed in sunshine at this time of year. My Gdansk apartment is in the Zaspa area: it's on the 6th floor and it has balconies at both front and back, through which cooling breezes make a steady one-way journey. My local Carrefour has a decent selection of imported beers. Everything's cushty.

Apart from interludes in Finland and Spain, and both parts of the island of Ireland, and now in Poland, this trip has been all about the north-western remnants of the former USSR. The three Baltic states are of course very different to Ukraine, which is in turn a long way removed from Belarus. But I enjoyed all five countries and I'd gladly go back to any or all of them.

I don't know when my 2020 trip will take place. Probably it won't be in summer, because for the past two months I've been sweating like a dyslexic on "Countdown", and I don't think I want to repeat that. Nor have I picked a continent just yet. Let's see what the visa rules look like after Brexit. It's all going to be sorted out soon, right? Right?

Enjoy the rest of 2019.