Yes, I abandoned ship for a year.
I did some living, returned to Iceland, and spent a lot of time reading other people’s words. Also, let’s be real honest – wasting time doom scrolling.
I am going to complete last year’s multi country sweep and then work on 2026. I am imperfect.
Gdansk, Poland.
A child of the post Cold War, Gdansk, Poland looms large in history to me. Also having born witness, albeit from the safety of the USA, of a the fall of both the USSR and Yugoslavia, Gdansk will always be a bunch steelworkers showing what it looks like to begin cracking a superpowers hold. It will also be newsmen and woman reporting from the far away place on the evening news as I waited for dinner to be ready. It will always be August 1980 and the gates of the yard chained shut, plywood demands for change. It will be young men with sideburns on megaphones. Perestroika.
It’s of course more. It’s a gorgeous rebuilt medieval section, a lovely cathedral, a street with an art deco post office and cafes. And yes, Starbucks too, and for once, not sad to see it. Because a reminder in my life time, the iron gates swung open. Poland changed dramatically and over the next week and 1/2, I’d be spending a lot of time learning what it takes for a bunch fiercely independent countries to reclaim their culture and their structure. And as ever, it was going to change my assumed history and fill in new areas of understanding around what it costs to be free.
Spoiler alert. A lot. Everything. Too much. And it takes years and years.
Lions And Cows 