At the age of 37, I finally went to a bachelor party. (It just so happened that my closest friends haven’t exactly been rushing to get married, so I never had the chance before.)
On May 10th, I hopped on the IC 3560 “Witkacy” train, which showed up 45 minutes late. I brought along a brand-new sketchbook I plan to fill with whatever catches my eye. I decided I’m only going to use black and shades of grey inside (except for a brown fineliner I use for labeling the drawings). I’m doing the linework with a dip pen and black indian ink from Renesans brand. Sometimes I leave it as plain ink, but I also have a tiny Roman Szmal metal watercolor palette with six different shades of black: Roman Black, Ivory Black, Velvet Black, Mars Black, Vine Black, and Aquarius Black. I’ll be mixing some of those in with the ink as I go.
The bachelor party kicked off at Pixel XL – a kind of interactive game room with a floor that responds to movement. You have to wear these special socks with rubber grips on the bottom (not sure if they also help the sensors pick up your steps or if it’s just to keep you from slipping). It was my first time in a place like that – and I don’t just mean Pixel XL, but any kind of interactive/escape-room-style spot. I had a blast. My favorite part was a dance game we played at the end – kind of a mix between Guitar Hero and Beat Saber.
Then we headed over to the 32. piętro (32nd Floor in Polish) restaurant in Olivia Star – the tallest building in the Trójmiasto at 180 meters. It was my first time there and I loved it. The food was great, but honestly, the real showstopper was the view from the windows and the observation deck.
After dinner, we started bar-hopping around the city: Bunkier club, Lumi shot bar, Wiśniewski bar, Miasto Aniołów club, and the “new” Cafe Absinthe.
While we were standing outside Wiśniewski, a street musician came up and asked if we wanted some live music. It started out low-key – just him singing a few songs for us – but it turned into a whole scene with a crowd forming, including our group of six, some random Swedes, and a bunch of passersby.
We started in the evening, and by the time we were politely kicked out of the last bar, Cafe Absinthe, it was already daylight. I see my friend Rafael almost every time I’m in Gdańsk, but I rarely get to see his brother Alfi – the man of the hour – and I almost never run into Janek or Artur, so I’m really glad I came. I had an awesome time!
My friend Rafael recently moved from Przymorze district to Wrzeszcz district. That day, he showed me around the neighborhood where he’s living now. I didn’t really know that area too well, apart from the Günter Grass roundabout — years ago, I once ate at the vegan spot Avocado nearby.
We wandered past a bunch of old townhouses, cozy little alleys, Gdańsk’s “Little Venice,” and some pretty weird courtyards (in one of them, someone had even used a toilet as a flower pot!). There was surprisingly a lot of plants too. It was a short walk, but a really nice one.
We stopped for a beer at a place called Lang.fuhr (Langfuhr’s the old German name for Wrzeszcz), which Rafael already knew but was new for me. The inside felt like a mix of an old-school communist-era apartment, a doctor’s office, and a thrift store — totally my vibe. We both went for the same thing — a classic Polish craft beer: Pacific from Artezan brewery. I hadn’t had it in ages — man, it was good.
We wrapped up the day at their place, playing one of my all-time favorite board games — Neuroshima Hex.
Later, back at my parents’ apartment, I fired up my dad’s Samsung Freestyle projector to hook up the Anbernic RG40XXV and play some retro games on the wall. While chilling on the couch, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized how cool it looked with the game light hitting my face. Snapped a few quick pics while playing Advance Wars (GBA), Contra (NES), and Final Fantasy 1 (GBA).
Whenever I crash at my parents’ place, my dad always lends me his Samsung Freestyle projector so I can watch YouTube on the wall. But this time, I came better prepared — I brought my tiny 8BitDo Zero 2 controller and a microHDMI to miniHDMI cable I ordered off AliExpress, so I could hook up my Anbernic RG40XXV console to the projector. And that’s exactly how I kicked off the day — playing the awesome Advance Wars (the GameBoy Advance version) on the wall.
Honestly, I’m pretty blown away by how good the image quality is for such a small, portable projector. The colors are nice, everything’s sharp and clear, even when the spring sun starts leaking through the blinds. Because of how the furniture’s arranged in my parents’ guest room, the Freestyle has to be set up at a really sharp angle to the wall, but it still manages to auto-correct the image shape like a champ. Sure, the room’s a bit too small to max out the image size (it can go up to 100”), but for retro games with low resolution, it’s not a big deal.
This Easter was pretty special for me, too, because my little niece suddenly became totally obsessed with me. Before, she used to be kinda scared of me — just this random uncle who shows up once in a blue moon — but out of nowhere, that all changed. She wouldn’t leave my side. She kept telling me everything, wanted to play all the time — staging toy battles, kicking a ball around, painting together with brushes and crayons. We even went out just the two of us around the neighborhood, playing soccer, picking flowers, drawing with chalk on the playground, and playing with a little remote-controlled car (my job was to drive it around and make voices for it, because it was a “real creature” nicknamed “Little One”).
We had a family breakfast and lunch, and after that, I headed out for one of my long walks. The day before I ended up by the seaside, so this time I wanted something different — the vibes of Oliwa, one of my favorite parts of Gdańsk.
On the way, I couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the tank sign still stuck to the fence at Villa Rekin (shark in Polish). One of my favorite Gdańsk stories, honestly. For years, there was an actual T34/85 tank parked in front of the house until the authorities made a fuss about it. The guy who lived there, Jerzy Janczukowicz, was a diver and co-founder of the Rekin diving club. He spent decades pulling WWII stuff out of the Baltic and local lakes — whole plane wrecks like a Messerschmitt, an American B-17 bomber, and yep, that tank.
Near the tram depot in Oliwa, there’s this little yellow booth that’s both fascinating and a little intimidating. It’s a beer bar called… Bar Piwny (Beer Bar in Polish). For years, I’ve been meaning to go inside because it feels like it’s a portal to an alternate Gdańsk, but I never quite had the guts. This time, I was dead set on it. Buuut… a sign taped to the door brought me back down to Earth — it was Easter, and they were closed on the 20th and 21st of April (they were open the day before, when I was at the beach, of course). So that adventure’s gonna have to wait.
Oliwa Park is, like, the most cliché spot for a walk in Gdańsk, but honestly, I don’t care. I love that place. It’s got its own kind of magic I like to revisit from time to time. Shady alleys, ponds, rare trees, the palm house, a little waterfall, statues, and a palace — it’s just a vibe.
On my way back from Oliwa, I passed a certain spot. There’s been a pub there for years — different names, different owners. First it was Troll, which I never went to because it had a bad rep among my friends. Then came RockOut, where I used to hang out a lot back when I still lived in Gdańsk. Now it’s called ProRock. I wasn’t even planning to go in — I was heading back to my parents’ place — but when I saw that little brick building, all the memories just hit me. The door was open, so I thought, “Alright, I’ll pop in for one beer.”
Over the years the place has gotten a bit nicer inside, but it’s still not what you’d call fancy. It’s tiny too, although when it’s warm outside, the sidewalk space and garden really help. Inside, there’s only one bathroom. And in winter, it can get freezing (people actually gather by the fireplace to warm up). Still, I really like that place. You can meet a lot of interesting people there, and they’re what make the vibe. The brick building itself has its own charm too. The pub’s right next to the tracks by Oliwa station — trains zoom past just behind the fence. It always sparks my imagination, thinking about all those people on the trains, catching a glimpse of us outside the pub for just a second before heading off to totally different places. It kind of makes being there feel even more special somehow.
Of course, I didn’t end up just having one beer. I stayed until late. I played a bit of Final Fantasy 1 (I’d accidentally lost my save and had to rebuild my progress with my notebook in hand). Then I hung out at the bar, chatting with the bartender and another guy. Later, this couple came in. She’d been playing chess for about a year and lost a match to her boyfriend, who’s been playing for way longer. She decided to make up for it by challenging random guys to games and beating them one by one. And yep, I’m proud to say I was one of her victims.
Later on, a friend of mine showed up — I’d texted him earlier where I was. We hadn’t really had a chance to hang out just the two of us for a long time, like we used to. I really needed that.
