August 9-10, 1999 - Gdansk, Poland
Gdansk was one of the first cities in Poland to
be rebuilt after the war, and it was very nice. Our time here happened to coincide with a
festival, so we got to witness traditional costumes and music, lots of people, and a
hearty feeling of life the people seemed to show.
The room we found was in an obscured courtyard,
but when we walked out the back we ran straight into the Neptune square, in the middle of
the "happenin'" pedestrian street. Neptune was the symbol of this city on the
Baltic, and there were tributes to him everywhere. The festival that was going on was
somewhat typical with lots of stands selling your average summer carnival food, souvenirs,
stuff, etc. But there was also a big stage set up with a full schedule of traditional
musician acts, with the musicians dressed in traditional garb. The festival stretched from
one end of the city to the other. We began calling it Gdansk Gdays.
We wandered around the city, and then got the
idea that it would be great to be somewhere in the path of the full solar eclipse that was
taking place the next day. We checked into night trains to Budapest, Pecs, Graz, and
Bucharest, but as the time of the eclipse was around noon, we calculated that we wouldn't
make it in time.
We had just then started to ponder what to do
next, when we stopped by an ATM and Dave noticed his wallet was missing. At first he
thought it must've fallen out when he was bending down at a multimedia/music store,
because he couldn't remember being jostled, and we hadn't been in any crowds of people.
But then he remembered a father and son "team" next to him while he had
headphones on at the music store; he thought the little boy was probably waiting for his
headphones, but instead his little hand was probably reaching into Dave's pocket.
We retraced our steps in case it had fallen out
of his pocket, but when we asked a few clerks if they'd seen a wallet, or if someone had
turned one in they abruptly interjected that it was probably stolen; so we gathered it was
a common occurrence there.
We quickly got on the phone and cancelled
Dave's credit cards, ATM card, and several phone cards. Luckily Kelly's numbers were
different so we weren't in a cash dilemma. Then we tried to find the police station. We
asked about fifteen different people, including a few security guards, policemen in cars,
and two policemen in vans. Everyone pointed down in the general direction, but we could
not find it. We gave up, had dinner, and went to bed. We were bummed at the situation, but
took it in stride. At least Dave's passport and really important stuff weren't in there.
The next day we got the woman at our hostel to mark the location of the police station on
a map, and went in to report it.
The policemen we met were very nice, but didn't
speak English or German. Luckily, other travelers were in trouble too: a German woman had
just changed money and was given old Zloty instead of current currency and was in to
report it. The "lucky" part was that she was with a nice young local woman who
knew English, so she was able to help translate for us at the same time. The Germans ended
up driving off with her in a police car to roam the streets trying to find their con
artist. The Polish woman informed us that there are cameras placed outside on all the main
streets of Gdansk, and police continually watch to try and intercept crimes while or soon
after they take place. This seemed a pretty high-tech phenomenon judging from the relative
low-tech shape of the police station.
Eventually, a translator arrived and we went
upstairs. A couple of men took Dave into a room and questioned him for about a half hour
and then gave us a copy of the police report.
We went straight from there to the train
station and caught the next train to Torun.
