I’m living with one foot in two different lives – the one with Ola in a small village near Łódź, and the one I left behind in Gdańsk. Sometimes it feels painful, sometimes it’s inspiring and kind of magical. As usual, it depends.

I came to Gdańsk for Easter. My family’s not super religious; some of us don’t believe in God at all, though honestly, I’m not even sure what the proportions are because we’ve never really talked about it. Still, we all enjoy those moments during the year when you sit around the table, slow down a bit — eat and just be together. Everyone’s on the same page about that.

I brought my notebook where I’m keeping a Final Fantasy 1 game diary (I’ve already filled up most of the pages; soon I’ll be starting a second notebook), and my watercolors, so I could keep working on it. I also brought a foldable, portable sitting pad I ordered from Aliexpress — it’s an awesome accessory if you’re someone like me who’s always wandering around and sitting everywhere. You can keep it in your backpack or bag, or clip it onto something. It folds out fast. It’s waterproof and it keeps the cold out.

I arrived the day before Easter. Hung out a bit with my family, then went for a walk in the seaside park that stretches across two neighborhoods — Przymorze and Brzeźno. On the beach, I ran into a couple walking their black cat on a leash and without one, and a lady who was the only person brave enough to swim in the (probably still really cold) sea.

During the whole walk, I kept playing Final Fantasy 1; sometimes walking, sometimes stopping and sitting down here and there. The game’s got a lot going for it, but for me, the best thing is that it doesn’t hold your hand. In modern games, whenever your character does anything — picks up an item, finds a new place, gets a clue — the game updates your journal automatically, figures stuff out for you, and changes the instructions for your quest along with the map markers. Basically, you can just follow the arrows without even reading any dialogue if you want. But when Final Fantasy 1 came out (1987), it was assumed that you’d read and figure things out on your own. It’s honestly a much cooler experience, traveling around different locations, exploring them, and gathering rumors about places you’ll visit in the future.

I only brought one handheld with me to Gdańsk, the Anbernic RG40XXV, and two accessories for it: the tiny 8BitDo Zero 2 controller and a miniHDMI to microHDMI cable. Whenever I stay at my parents’ place, my dad lets me borrow his projector — a Samsung Freestyle — so I can watch YouTube at night and in the morning. Thanks to the cable and controller, I could also play GBA and NES games projected onto the wall. It was pretty cool — I’ll write more about that in later posts.

In the evening, I wanted to visit Derkacz, a small bar near the beach in Brzeźno, where I used to always get this amazing veggie sandwich, real late-90s street food style, but unfortunately they were closed the day before the holidays. So instead, I dropped by Bar LED next door for a pizza.

Before going to sleep, I played a bit of Contra on the projector. I love that game — I spent a crazy amount of time on it as a kid. It’s one of the hardest games I’ve ever played, though I think I actually beat it back when I was little.