The Life of a Canadian Studying Medicine in Poland: Sept 21

Cheść!

That is the informal hello in Polish. (Pronounced as "Cheshch"). I am going to try and add at least one word in Polish into my blog. That way I learn it as we go as well.

What a beautiful day filled with warm sunshine and architecture. So today I ventured down to Old Town with another fellow 1st year student. We met up for noon and took the tram down. The main adventure was for St. Mary's Basilica (Bazylika Mariacka) and to climb the lookout tower.

A little history about the church. It is the largest medieval brick-built church in Europe. Construction begun in 1343 and took 150 years to complete. It was destroyed in World War 2 and reconstructed. I paid the 5 zł to climb the tower, and started my ascent. There are 470 stairs that bring you up 81.5 meters (267 ft). The staircase to climb was short, I felt like the hunchback of Notre Dame. He lived in the tower, maybe he was tall and that's how he developed the hunchback. It was also about the width of my shoulders, with about 15 cm to spare. I could barely climb the tower. After about 200 steps it opens up into the old bell tower, and its wide open then. A lot easier to climb.

If you ever visit, definitely climb the tower for the view. It's breathtaking from beauty, and because it's a workout just to climb the thing. It's about 1/6 of the height of the C.N. Tower, and people climb that! If you are afraid of heights, claustrophobic, in poor health, or suffer from vertigo, I would recommend not attempting the climb. Once you start, you can only go up. There's no way for you to possibly turn around and come down. Or walk backwards for that matter.

If you do not suffer from the above. I urge you to view Gdańsk from the top! (see photos)

After climbing back down (about a half hour ordeal from stair 1 up and back down), I toured around the basilica looking at some of the spectacular artifacts it contains. Afterwards, we aimlessly walked around old town, just exploring the old architecture on buildings, and the history, that really has been untouched. This area is very populated by tourists. So I left to go back to room instead of staying around.

After getting back and dropping my camera off, I decided it was a good time to run to the galeria and buy some BBQ sauce for the chicken, and an electric grill to cook it on. With that done, it was time to cook and eat dinner.

Now, I'm just getting ready to call it a night and watch a movie prior bed. Oh, Netflix does not work in Poland. So if you use Google Chrome, install the Media Hint extension. It tricks the network to think your're in the states. This works to unlock any viewing item that is blocked in Canada.

Dobranoc,

T