The glorious Old Town of Gdańsk, Poland

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(the article below accompanies this video)

We woke up at 9:30 on our first morning in Gdańsk, Poland. It was a new day in a new town, and we hadn’t enjoyed the last one, Warsaw, much at all. As if to welcome me to the northern Polish coast, my blood sugar was 86 — excellent after the big rice meal and cookies I’d loaded up on last night. In fact, I made it through that whole thick meal ordeal without going over 200. I’m getting good at handling rice!

We went across the street to the Happy Seven Hostel‘s common room for the buffet breakfast, which turned out to be two types of cereal with milk plus some bread with cheese and salami. And, of course, coffee. Simple but good enough. There were two or three other people there but nobody was chatty. They did have a guitar there so I strummed a couple of quiet morning songs for Masayo. I haven’t played since I left Osaka almost a month ago and my hands were aching, full of chords.

Back in the room we each did some laundry with the Scrubba in the shared shower room, stringing up the wet clothes in the chilly room just in front of the door. Hope they dry.

Then it was time for our first walk around Gdańsk together and we immediately got lost. But not unhappily.

A tourist map sign on a street corner indicated the only tourist info office was back in the train station. That seemed strange but we set out to find it. Unfortunately, we soon came to a roundabout and set off down what turned out to be the wrong direction.

Fortunately it led to a great little park, quiet and full of fallen leaves. The problem was that Masayo was very tired and hungry, especially after all the exertions in Warsaw, and was not in the mood to walk. The park was nice, she said, but she wanted to sit and relax. If only I knew the way back into town… I did manage to check my BG however, and it was 182. A good reading for a betic who is walking around, I thought.

I did some guessing and got us back to the station area, where we found the tiny tourist info office. I asked the guy there for a map of Gdańsk and he gruffly tossed one on the counter. Not a real nice map but it was better than nothing.

Then we went to a big bakery/restaurant we’d passed last night on our way into town. They had a lunch special — soup, a rolled cabbage, diced potatoes, and some water. It was pretty good, though I wasn’t real hungry. Masayo felt a little better anyway.

But still she elected to go back to the hostel – enough walking for her today. So I went further into Old Town myself. I was on a hunt: my map said there were in fact more tourist info offices there and I wanted a better map.

Old Town Gdańsk was close by, and really nice. It’s dominated by some really huge churches, and lots of great, ornate building faces. The main street is rather touristy but in a nice, acceptable way. Gdańsk has built itself up since World War II very admirably.

I found a tourist office where the staff wasn’t much friendlier than the other guy but where they did at least have a better map. Back at the hostel and found Masayo laying down, still wearing her coat and hat and blearily playing around on her phone. She needed a day of rest.

At 4 pm I checked my BG and had dropped to 63. Surprisingly low after potatoes but not terribly so. I ate some cookies and we both just relaxed. I sorted photos and worked on t1dwanderer.com.

At 7:30 I checked and was 161 — good job handling the low. We were ready for dinner but didn’t know where to go. Masayo was feeling better so we decided to walk along the seaside behind our hostel and choose a place.

But we didn’t get far. Right behind the hostel was a place called Przystań Gdańska that looked really good. There were no other customers but the place was very nice, quaint and decorated with the touch of a single owner, not like a bland chain restaurant.

I got soup in a bread bowl, plus a plate of grilled shrimp and garlic (plus sparkling water). It was all delicious, if a little more expensive than I usually like (about $18 for mine). But it was nice to eat a real meal, and the hostel was so cheap (with free breakfast) that I felt I could afford it.

It didn’t seem too terribly high in carbs either — the shrimp didn’t hardly count, just the soup and its bread bowl (the latter of which I ate half).

At 11:00 though, I was 326. That’s big — and I didn’t think my shot at dinner had been that insufficient. I didn’t really have any good ideas what had destroyed me two days-long streak of good readings. Maybe my earlier low made my body panic and liver shoot out some glucose. That would explain it better than the soup and bread, anyway.

So I took some Humalog, plus my daily Lantus, and we went to sleep. We both felt rested and had enjoyed what we had seen of Gdańsk so far and I was looking forward to seeing more of the sites tomorrow. And except for the domino-effect low I’d had, my BGs were pretty good all day!

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