Monday-August 13

Monday August 13, 2012

The morning started out with some wonderful sleeping in but then it took a turn for the worst when, walla, the sleeping in caused all the hot water to leave and a cold shower awaited my arrival.  After we managed to get over that hurtle, the whole Hope Singers group (that’s us by the way) marched 15 min down the street where we met breakfast with a vigor at ‘Casino Diner’. (no we didn’t gamble)  After the eggs, bacon, and bread went down the hatch…. Did I mention bread??.. wow, we just can’t seem to get enough bread over here.. Anyway, back to the subject at hand… You’ll have to excuse me if I go on too many bunny trails cause I really don’t want to bore you with all this reading. So where was I at.. O ya, after breakfast we all gathered at the largest cathedral church in Poland, Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and sang a few songs in the wonderful acoustics! Titus started us off with his wonderful solo on ‘Instrument of Your Peace,’ and after we were finished singing, the bell tower guard allowed us to climb to the top of the tower for free since she enjoyed our singing so much. Normally it’s 5zl (about $2.75) to climb the tower.  After we finished touring the church, everyone was on their own till 1:30 in the afternoon. We mostly just walked up and down the streets of Old Town Gdansk buying souvenirs and food, and just enjoying the wonderful weather on our day off.  The atmosphere and architecture in the old towns over here are just great! At 1:30, we all met to take a boat ride in the bay of the Baltic Sea. Before we embarked on our voyage however, Manu found a great place to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ , so a few of us joined him in singing a few songs to the great delight of few passerby’s! We topped the evening off with a picnic on the beach of the Baltic Sea which included sand, food,(guess what, we had bread again) volley-ball, and just all around good times! And then it was back to the Hostel (and a wonderful hot shower awaited me this time) to get a few winks in before we roll out at 7:15 A.M.   Signing off, Mike for the Hopers….