Sometimes the best places are right under your nose.

For my last day in Gdansk, I'd planned to hang out near to my hostel, in the park and the art museum.

Polish toilet sign. I have never thought of myself as a circle, but I guess I will start now.

In Olwia park. Which also housed the modern art museum, which is free on Fridays. Yay.

Inside the modern art museum.

I love these colors, and I think I would like to paint my doors aqua too.

Sometimes you find beautiful things in the bathroom.

Cafe Delfin. I sat here and got buzzed off my one glass of red wine.

Lunch/dessert. It was caramel-something and really tasty.

Cafe Delfin, Gdansk

Trucks huffing outside. The swish of the swinging door to the bar. Clicking. Unintelligible language. Light wafting from the picture window inscribed Café Delfin. A moth who can’t find her way out running over and over into the clear barricade. A film projector, cord cut, now decoration- seems perfect design with the moth flitting about. I think of movies in elementary school - the dust in the projector light. Six blush brown-edged roses perched in a clear vase, beckoning romantic dreams. Two waitresses: one young, one old. The clank of a glass. Roughing of chair legs across the tiles. Electronic ambience drops from the corner speaker. A phone song rings, interrupting my reverie.

Old cranberry colored theatre seats lining the wall match my dry red, which is making me dizzy at two in the afternoon. I finish a pen off. Satisfaction. The swinging door again. Paying at the counter, an old man in a vest, greenish khakis, and a plaid shirt, all hanging loosely off him, slides his wallet in his back pocket and shuffles to the bathroom.

No English. I’m alone in my thoughts, alone at my table, alone in my worry for the moth who is resting on the window sill barricaded by glass. I want to move her, but I am scared to touch her. She rests, waiting to garner the energy to bang the glass again.

Gdansk: where all the tourists go

I'm having a little trouble finding inspiration in Gdansk and surrounding area. Which is ok. Sometimes places are like that, and it's the contrast that makes other places feel special.

There were so many souvenirs for sale, and the crowds so heavy that it felt like Munich in summer. After the last few months of sparse tourists, I felt claustrophobic navigating the hoards of people moving in slow motion en masse like half-frozen Heinz ketchup. To get away, to breathe, was mostly what I was thinking.

Not that there weren't some pretty sights...

The central train station is one of the most beautiful in Europe.

Yesterday I took a water tram to Hel peninsula. I went an hour early to buy tickets in Sopot but they were already sold out, so I took a train to Gdynia and tried again, and ended up not going to Hel town, but to a neighboring town of Jastarnia. Everyone wanted to go to Hel, and the tickets were again sold out.

The ferry was crowded with screaming and running kids, and I couldn't help but feel happy I didn't have one of my own. I sat and wrote and stared at the sea. Arrival on Hel, I expected it to be tourist central, but I was surprised to find it felt quiet and peaceful. So I continued my pilgrimage to Hel, walking to the tip of the Hel peninsula and then catching a train back to my hostel later in the day. The price to go to Hel and Back: 45zl (approx 11 Euros).

There were multiple bunkers on the Hel peninsula, installed mostly by the Germans. Poland gets the award for most bunkers seen after Albania on this trip.

The Hel peninsula was aptly named, covered in billboards (WTF?) and sun-worshipers.