She Sells Sea Shells at the Baltic Sea Shore

Hello my Friends!

I just  got back from the Polish sea-shore. Due to Helena’s health problems we decided to ditch school and go to get some fresh air at the Baltic Sea. I made a few phone calls, ake.a little web surfing and reserved a summer-house for 18 days for us. Probably all of the Polish tax return and some of our savings went into it but what the heck, I was so thrifty at my other continent life, we deserve it! I have packed some best case scenario and worst case scenario clothes and all of the kids, kissed my husband good-bye and drove all the way north to Chłopy, 275 miles (443 km). My very first long trip as a driver. Piece of cake! As soon as we got settled in we started to explore. Chłopy is a small fisherman village, we could see fishing boats leaving and coming back on daily basis. Because we got there before the season, beaches were not crowded and clean. Main inhabitants of them were seniors by themselves or with their little grandchildren. Not much of the company for  my kids. But we were not bored, not at all. Every day we were walking on the beach about 2 miles to Sarbinowo. That village was bigger and had more tourists and all of the necessary restaurants etc. needed. Michał was usually walking on the dry sand or was careful not to wet his feet, Kasia on contrary was wet every day, except for cold days. On our way to Sarbinowo we were hunting for amber. I heard a story that you can find amber on the Baltic beach. It must have been truth many years ago, I think about 30 when Sławek went to Baltic with his parents and he claims he found some amber and his little brother did too. We did not find any! But I think we found a tiny iron meteorite it looks like a bit of metal enclosed by stone and you can not take iron out of the stone without breaking it. It’s cool. Another cool find is a WWII Nazi 1 MAI 1936 TINNIE PIN BADGE. Labor Day pin badge.Have a look at both:



Once upon a time, before sea started to work on it,  it looked like that:

When we were going to Chłopy Helena had runny nose, she had some skin tests for allergies and was off her medication because of that. She lasted without ear infection for four days, on Sunday morning she woke me up at 4:20 am and said she has an ear-ache.

All by myself, 275 miles away from home… I found a doctor, and we were lucky because Helenka was seen without waiting. When we got out from the exam room there were about four or five kids waiting in line. A trip to pharmacy and she was set for a week of medication. For the last week of our staying in Chłopy Sławek came so he had an opportunity to go for a check-up to ear and nose doctor. The doctor prescribed Helena another medicine because her ear did not look great yet. Day after taking new medication she complained about ear pain, so we went again to the same doctor and she got another medication on top of the previous one. She is still on it.

During our vacation we made a trip to Rewal and Trzęsacz both are more west from Chłopy. Those two towns are really nice, if you plan your vacation in Poland I recommend it. There are ruins of the church from fourteenth century that was originally built about a mile from the sea shoreline and nowadays it “hangs on the cliff”. This postcard illustrates it so well:

Towards the end of our stay in Chłopy a cat came to us. I think it was female cat and very intelligent, she was not afraid of people and was tame. Kasia was thrilled! She bought a cat food for her and the cat stayed till the end of our vacation. One morning she let us know very clearly what is the purpose of her visit – she came to the empty bowl and licked it, then she purred and rubbed against our legs. When we were putting food from can to the bowl she impatiently started to put her paw into the can and eat from her own paw. It cracked me up.

Next week is a first week of summer vacation for kids. I will be looking at houses again and July 3rd we go again to Lublin, Sławek’s cousin is getting married.

So long, and have a nice vacation.