Training to Gdynia

Today was all about traveling north to Gdynia. Gdynia is farther north of Gdansk on the Baltic Sea.
I got up at 8:00 and ran a couple of miles. From Soviet times, they built roads with wide walkways on either side of the streets for pedestrians. It makes a great place to run without knowing where you are. I started at the hotel near the CADILLAC dealer - who would have guessed that GM is selling Caddies to Poles? I run towards the center of Warsaw and return. It makes life easy...EXCEPT that I had one of those Soviet moments. I have heard of a movie that Russians watch on New Year's Eve about a bunch of guys who get drunk and decide to play a joke on one their more inebriated fellows. They put him on a train and send him to a different city. He doesn't notice. He gets off the train at what he thinks is his stop. He doesn't notice anything is wrong. He walks to his apartment building (they all look the same all over Russia from Soviet times). He doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary. He takes the elevator to his flat, goes in and crashes until the next morning....all in the wrong city that looks the same as all the other cities.
Well, there are two hotels in Warsaw that look exactly the same. When I came back from my run yesterday, I went to the wrong one. I didn't notice anything was different. I took the elevator up to my floor. I looked for my room, but couldn't find the right number in the right place. It was good I hadn't had anything to drink that morning. So, it finally dawned on me that I must be in the wrong place. But for a minute I was reliving that movie which is entitled, "The Irony of Fate". Some day I will actually get a copy and watch it. It probably isn't funny with subtitles anyway!

The breakfast room was empty of people this morning. The conference was over and they all must have gone back home to work on Monday (today). So we had the breakfast buffet to ourselves.

I packed and got ready to leave for the train station. We taxied to the station around noon. We bought sandwiches, snacks, and water at the station. The train was about 15 minutes late and we had a struggle getting all of our luggage in our compartment. One lady with less luggage found another empty compartment so that we could have room for all of our luggage. The train was slow and showed mostly farmland of northern Poland. It got dark at 4:00 and then I continued reading the next hundred pages of The Last Symbol. Monika's dad and boyfriend were waiting to help us with our luggage and to drive us to Monika's home. I rode wtih Vyshek (sp?) who spoke no English. He did speak a little Russian so we attempted to converse with a smattering of Russian. That didn't last very long, much to my dismay. Use it or lose it. I think I've lost much of what I had learned!

Monika lives on the outskirts of the town of Gdynia. She has a lovely little house where she lives with her 16 year old daughter, Magda and her 7-year-old son. Her father had prepared a dinner of turkey casserole with peaches - it was very good - potatoes, a ham and pasta salad, and homemade vodka in two varieties! We spent the evening watching a Polish-made film that received an Oscar nomination last year about the Katyn Forest Masssacre of Poles by the Soviets at the beginning of WW II. THE saddest story of the war possibly, because even after the war, the truth was buried - literally - and the Soviets tried to blame it on the Germans. Great film, excellent actors, very graphic ending of course. Film called "Katyn".

Monika was very pleased to show us the banner that she had made for our conference and the signs and posters that she will post outside the conference room. Civic Voices is proudly displayed with all the countries partaking in the program! Nice!