Last weekend Aniek and I went to Gdansk in Poland. From Turku it is really easy to get to Gdansk. On thursday we got on the plane and after 1,5 hour we arrived in Gdansk. Then we had to figure out how we could get to our appartment. Luckily the public transport was quite good and it was not so hard to find out which bus we had to take. We arrived in the centre but it was already dark, so we couldn't see much of the city. We only could see that it was a really nice city. We were both tired so we went to our hotel. We ordered a pizza and watched a movie on Netflix.
On Friday we were in the city quite early and we were just walking around when we bumped in to a free walking tour. So we decided to do it. The guide took us to all the nice places in the city and told us a lot about the history of the city. And as we were walking through the city we saw that a lot of the houses looked familiar to us. The houses looked like the houses in Amsterdam. Later on the guide told us that a lot of Dutchman lived there and that there was a lot of trading between The Netherlands and Gdansk.
The guide also told us a lot about the beginning of the Second World War and he showed us the most important places where you still can see what happened in those years. So the tour wasn't only fun we also learned a lot.
It was freezing cold that day, it felt like -15 degrees, so after an hour I was cold all over my body. After the tour we had time to warm ourselves up again with a hot chocolate.
After our hot chocolate we decided to go to the museum of the second world war. It was way to cold to stay outside so we thought a nice day to go to a museum. The museum was divided in a lot of rooms and it took you from the beginning of the war till the end. Really worth a visit if you go to Gdansk.
It was already a bit late so we went out for our dinner. We came across a lovely little restaurant where they played live music. We had some cocktails and a lovely dinner and went back to our hotelroom.
On Saturday we started our day with making some pictures from the city and buying some souvenirs. It was the first of december so they opened up the christmas market. It wasn't a big christmas market but it was really nice and there were a lot of things and ofcourse also a lot of Polish delicacies we had to try.
We also went to the St. Mary's church and climbed to the top where you have a beautiful view all over the city. It were 400 steps but it was really worth it.
Because it was so really cold we decided to go the shopping mall. In Gdansk we have a lot of big shoppingmalls so it is also a perfect city for shopping.
Again we had some cocktails that evening and a delicious dinner and than went back to our hotelroom. That was already the end of our weekend. On sunday we flew back to Turku.
Puhua myöhemmin
Emma
Today on the 6th of December it is Independence day in Finland, or as they call it "Suomen itsenäisyyspäivä". The movement for Finland's independence started after the revolutions in Russia, caused by disturbances inside Russia from hardships connected to the First World War. This gave Finland an opportunity to withdraw from Russian rule. After several disagreements between the non-socialists and the social-democrats over who should have power in Finland, on 4 December 1917, the Senate of Finland, led by Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, finally made a Declaration of Independence which was adopted by the Finnish parliament two days later.
