We have arrived in our last port. We have mixed emotions for sure. Last night we had our Poland Pre-port Lecture and then we had a TEDx party to celebrate our hard work and then instead of hanging out in the Glazer Lounge like we would normally do we came back to our cabin and went to bed early.

We are working on our next big project, which is a final performance for our acting class. Their final exam will be a performance in the student union for the entire shipboard community. They have written monologues, scenes, and songs, composed new works on the piano and made hilarious and moving videos. We are choosing which projects will be in the show and writing transitions, working out the lighting and mic cues and putting together a Power Point for the background images with sound and titles. This is the reason that we didn't make it off the ship until around 3pm today. It was so nice to get up and go to breakfast and then just come back and get work done with no pressure. We worked on the show, graded papers, exercised and watched some Big Bang Theory (thanks Kyrsten).

When we finally did get ourselves together we took the shuttle from the ship to Old Town Gdansk. The ship offers a free shuttle because it is about a 20 minute ride from our industrial port into the city. We had the absolute best day today. It was so relaxed. We had no plan and we got off the bus and just wandered toward a huge ferris wheel. We found a market that went on for miles. There is a market every year called St. Dominic's and it last for two weeks and we are so fortunate to be here during this time. There were beautiful handmade crafts and tacky souvenirs and great food. I saw so many things I wanted but we refrained for the most part. There were some hand-blown glasses that I coveted along with a hand painted tea cup and a stained-glass angel. I MUST go back tomorrow. Everything seems so cheap here because we have been in such expensive ports. We had dinner for about 20 dollars and that is with two drinks. Finally, we can not feel guilty about doing dinner out.

We didn't know much about Poland, and I feel like we still don't know enough, but we are learning. Without knowing much, we do know that Gdansk is beautiful. The building fronts are not original but they are refurbished and so beautiful. You expect to see Walt Disney wandering around because it is so beautiful. There were string quartets on the street and all of the shops had booths in front of their doors to tempt you to come inside. We did a lot of wandering and then we had a great capresé salad and some pirogues (typical Polish food). It rained for a few minutes but luckily not to much and then we realized that there was free fast wifi in the streets so we did some FaceTiming.

Tomorrow we are going to Sopot which is a resort town about 20 minutes away via train. There are lots of great restaurants and beaches there. To bad we can't fit in our bathing suits anymore (HA HA).