{"id":152,"date":"2019-10-18T23:03:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T23:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2020-02-22T06:53:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-22T06:53:06","slug":"boxing-day-in-gdansk-kaliningrad-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/boxing-day-in-gdansk-kaliningrad-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing Day in Gdansk: Kaliningrad 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Boxing Day in Gdansk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Is it just me, or does it get increasingly difficult to\nenjoy yourself on Christmas Day as you get older? And, as you get older do you\nfind yourself looking forward more to Boxing Day than to the day before? One\nthing I can say about this Christmas in Poland, it may have been my first year\naway from Blighty during the festive season but at least in Poland I was in for\nno surprises. And as Boxing Day is an improvement on Christmas Day in England,\nso it came to pass that the same step up was replicated here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous article: Christmas in Gdansk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Olga\u2019s idea that we should redress our sedentary\nyesterday with a leg-stretching stroll along the sea front. Another similarity\nbetween Christmas rituals in England and those in Poland was, apparently, that\nafter overdoing it in the grub department folk assuaged their conscience with a\nmorning constitutional before returning to the table and overdoing it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boxing Day in Gdansk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Olga must have had an informed knowledge of Polish people\u2019s Christmas habits since she correctly predicted that we would not be alone on the beach this morning. The sight was most unusual.  The sand was frozen solid, the pools of water where the sea met the sand had iced over and some were coated with a fresh sprinkling of snow, and yet, as far as the eye could see, a line of people, a well-dressed procession of folk of all ages, were promenading along the edge of the seafront. I remember thinking to myself that I had never seen such an outstanding display of real fur hats and coats. The women\u2019s coats were long, opulent and luxuriously trimmed; they shone magnificently in the luminous air, the darker and lighter shades of pelts both in the coats and matching hats catching the sunlight, holding it for a moment and then reflecting the nuanced patterns beautifully. Looking back, this was possibly my first introduction to the futility of political correctness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Boxing
Promenading on Gdansk beach, year 2000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A little further along the coastline my eyes alighted on a\nquite different scene. Shivering on a low wooden jetty stood three red lobsters\nlaughing. One, who had just taken a meaningful swig from a vodka bottle, was\nabout to dive back into the icy cold sea. I was not ignorant of such peculiar\ngoings-on in country\u2019s such as these, but what a carry on; you certainly would\nnot catch us Brits doing this in the middle of winter in Heacham or Hunstanton\n~ in fact, come to think of it, we wouldn\u2019t most likely be doing this in\nHeacham or Hunstanton in the middle of summer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site of lobsters in trunks and a fresh flurry of snow\ngave us just the excuse we\u2019d been waiting for to investigate the probability\nthat the impressively large red-brick hotel in front of us might be concealing\na bar. I cannot remember the name of this place and I never entered it into my\n2000 Diary, but after a bit of research on the internet I am of the opinion\nthat it was more than likely The Grand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Boxing
MIck Hart & Olga, Gdansk, 2000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I did write in my diary that the lounge bar was a tad\ndisappointing, a little bit run of the mill, but compensation comes in the most\nunusual of places ~ the toilet. Yes, the bog was magnificent! It was tiled from\ntop to bottom in contrasting hues of green marble and had urinals that dated\nback to Edwardian times. They were ~ if you know your urinals ~ deliberately\ncontrived with modesty in mind. Big, tall, impressive curves of sparkling white\nvitreous enamel built into brickwork pillars, more than enough to ensure the absolute\nprivacy expected by the widdling Edwardian gentleman, who could have virtually\nstood inside them, tuxedo, tailcoat and all. What was most thrilling, however,\nwas the fact that they were British made, each urinal inscribed in blue with\nthe name of Armitage Shanks!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had been so edifying, this discovery of a real Edwardian\nrest room, English designed and so far from home, that no sooner had we\nreturned to the bar than we ordered another round of vodkas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No doubt seeing where this was going, too much drink too\nearly, Olga interrupted our celebrations suggesting that we should visit some\nplace cultural, somewhere on the edge of town. The proposed destination was a\nsmall museum. We bowed to her better judgement, finished our vodkas, vacated\nthe hotel and were whisked off by taxi to the place that she prescribed. Sadly,\nhowever, her culture-verses-drinking gamble didn\u2019t pay off. We ended up, having\nleft the taxi, in a rather drab and sorry-looking urban backwater, with nothing\nmuch to see but row upon row of lack-lustre flats. The museum, or any museum,\nwas never located and stranded as we were we had the miserable misfortune of\nhaving to take refuge in yet another bar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A railway platform somewhere in Gdansk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This place was not a haven. It was a modern glass and\nmetal-framed structure parked in the intersection of a busy road; it was pokey,\nwith a small Coca-Cola dispensing machine which, given the size of the room,\nwas the inverse ratio of Dr Who\u2019s TARDIS. We only stayed for one gassy pint of\nPolish beer, having learnt that the railway station was just around the corner.\nThis turned out to be a rewarding ~ as in different ~ experience in itself. I\ndon\u2019t believe that I had ever stood on such a cold, miserable, basic railway\nstation in my life, and I certainly haven\u2019t since! It was simply a low slab of\ncrumbling, decaying concrete, with three buckled metal seats, six poles ~ which\nonce belonged to a canopy since gone ~ and three dented and weather-stained\nsigns. Poland may well be fighting for cultural survival since joining the EU,\nbut surely by now someone, someone like George Soros, for example, must have\ndonated benevolent money to make Polish railways better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How good or bad Polish railways were, we would soon find out, as early next morning, at the crack of dawn, we\u2019d be leaving Poland by train and crossing over the border into Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 2018-2020 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boxing Day in Gdansk Is it just me, or does it get increasingly difficult to enjoy yourself on Christmas Day as you get older? And, as you get older do you find yourself looking forward more to Boxing Day than to the day before? One thing I can say about this Christmas in Poland, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[19,20,22,21],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary-2000","category-kaliningrad-mick-harts-diary","tag-gdansk-year-2000","tag-kaliningrad-via-poland","tag-mick-hart-in-gdansk","tag-moving-to-kaliningrad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t