The feel of Gdansk

The biggest curiosity I had about Gdansk before I arrived was what does a city where the democracy is only 20 years old look like? And I admit, I probably had very sterotypical Cold War-era images in my head.

To some extent, Gdansk supports that. Buildings seem to fall into four categories:

Brand new, modern, and very nice - These are few and far between in the area I'm in. The office building is very nice, though!
Austere/dull - There are quite a few of these types of apartments around: the kind with a very flat exterior, nothing much exciting going on. Some of them are very colorful, but it dosn't really change the blah-ness of them.
Cool old buildings - Obviously, there were lots of these in Old Town and Sopot, but they are really scattered everywhere. Houses, churches, and office buildings with amazing architecture are tucked around in random places.
Rundown sadness - These are scattered everywhere too, and they don't seem to be isolated to certain areas.

The different buildings don't really seem to be concentrated in certain areas; they're just intermingled randomly. For example, here's a picture from my walk home. You can see some interesting buildings on the other side of the street, but my side is a little more depressing.

The school right behind the corporate apartment

Awesome apartment building near my apartment

A hungry vego in Gdansk

One of the websites I read before I arrived said that as a holdover from the war, vegetarian food was quite common and easy to find. I have absolutely not found that to be the case. If anything, Gdansk is one of the most meat-heavy cities I've ever been in!

A sad side effect of this was a disaster in which I ate a piece of bread slathered with lard, topped with pickles. I knew right away from the taste that I didn't much care for it, but it would never have occurred to me that the white spread would be lard! (It was in a bar, so it was very dark.) I felt pretty gross when I found out what it was, and I feel pretty gross thinking about it now!
It looked appetizing enough though...

This is more or less what it looked like

My vegetarianism has raised a few questions from my curious co-workers, who find my choice... intriguing to say the least.

Here are some of the questions I've gotten:

Do you eat fish?
Do you eat chicken?
Do you eat yellow cheese and white cheese?

The office

The office building is very nice, but it's become clear to me that working alongside developers in Poland is just like working alongside developers anywhere else. There are a few unique quirks though.
Like wearing office slippers...

(Everyone seemed to have their own outrageous slippers except for me.)
Getting distracted with funny videos in the afternoon when someone would play a YouTube clip on the TV in the room.

Radishes seem to be a popular snack in the kitchen...

The fresh produce box. Mmmmm.... Radishes!

And on nice spring days when it's 12 C, the windows get opened!

For all their quirks, the guys in the office are some of the nicest I've ever worked with. They went out of their way to make sure I was taken care of in the office and outside of it. They handled all my Polish-language needs, like arranging for an airport taxi, and they made sure I knew how to get around. They also taught me some important Polish phrases - mainly curses, as it turned out.

I had an impression of the Gdansk guys as terse and a little cold. But nothing could have been further from the truth!

The apartment

The apartment where I'm staying is very nice too.

But it definitely has some quirks. The most noticeable of these is the angel-themed decor in the kitchen.

They extend far beyond what's in this pic - they're also on the ceiling

I cannot explain why this is, and no one seems to know the answer. The apartment "just came that way."

The apartment is really big - at least 5 times the size of our Sydney apartment. It has three bedrooms, of which I sleep in one upstairs. I shut the door when I go to the office and it heats up during the day. So by the time I am ready for bed, I can go up to the super warm bedroom and be oh so cozy!

The apartment does have a TV but I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. The guys at work assure me that I'm not missing anything. =)

One feature of the apartment that I really like is the cool lighting. It makes the room seem warmer and happier, which I imagine is important during the short, dark days of the winter.