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A few months ago, some people from my old high school class came up with the idea of meeting up. Now that we're all over fifty, it's no joke - before you know it, we'll start dropping off. Initially, it was supposed to happen in October, but it turned out that, first, the notice was too short, and second, most people already had October plans. So, we settled on November instead. Specifically: the second last weekend of November, on a Saturday evening.

Getting so many people together after nearly thirty years is no easy task. Everyone has scattered to the four winds. Out of a group of about thirty people, eighteen agreed to come, and in the end, sixteen actually made it - two had Life happen to them at the last moment. The rest either openly declined ("I'm not interested" or "Sounds great, I'm jealous, but unfortunately I can't make it because of X, Y, and Z") or couldn't be tracked down.

My wife decided that since I was going, she would go too - to meet up with an old friend she hadn’t seen in ages. We managed to convince some local friends to stay at our place over the weekend and keep an eye on the kids...

"Kids," yeah right - one's already an adult, and the other is eleven, quite independent too. Still, someone needed to drop them off at their schools on Friday, and besides, we had never left the house without the kids for more than a day before, so it felt weird to leave them on their own.

... and the pets. We also managed to persuade some other friends from Gdynia to let us crash at their place for two nights.

The plane tickets were a story in themselves. Returning on Monday was out of the question due to work obligations. There was a flight to Gdańsk on Friday morning, but the return on Sunday was only available via a connecting flight through Munich, with a 40-minute layover - a bit risky. I clicked around, searched, and found out there was a direct flight to Dublin on Sunday, but... from Bydgoszcz. Fortunately, it’s only a two-hour ride from Gdynia to Bydgoszcz by Piast, so that worked out fine.

Friday

The flight to Gdańsk was at six in the morning, so it made sense to be at the airport before five: park the car, take the shuttle to the terminal, check in, and so on - realistically, we needed to be there by about 4:30 a.m. Although the drive to the airport takes less than an hour, planes aren't taxis and won't wait, plus it was nearly winter, with some areas snowy and others windy. We decided we'd have to wake up at 2 a.m., which meant going to bed no later than 10 p.m. the previous night to at least get four hours of sleep.

Plans are plans, but of course, we ended up chatting with our friends until midnight. So, after just two hours of sleep, we were driving to the airport fueled by coffee and Red Bull.

On the plane, we were so exhausted that, despite the cramped seats and limited space, we managed to doze off for about an hour. We woke up even more tired, as sleeping upright in a seatbelt is hardly restful.

Saturday

At 10 a.m., our friends picked us up from the airport in Gdańsk, and we spent the rest of the day at their place, catching up on socializing. We also checked this visit off our mental list of important must-dos, since they had already visited us in Ireland at least two (or maybe three) times, and we'd never been to their current place - even though they've lived there for about ten years or more. These friends are the kind who are always up for a good time, whether it's raising a glass or raising the roof, and the laughter was endless. Naturally, we went to bed late...

Sunday

…so on Saturday morning, we were completely sleep-deprived. Bags under our eyes, struggling to stay awake.

The reunion in Lębork was set to start around 6 p.m., but we left Gdynia much earlier to visit family graves at the cemetery and wander around some old places. I hadn't been there in ages, and a lot had changed. The PKO BP branch had moved from Staromiejska Street to Plac Pokoju. Jantar, which used to be a "classic" communist-era multi-department store, had turned into a conglomerate of small, individual shops. The old city walls looked quite impressive - they restored the original walls wherever possible, and where it wasn't, they left markings in the ground, so you could clearly see where the wall once stood.

There's also an apiary.

A few bookstores have disappeared, and quite a few restaurants and cafés have popped up in their place. The public toilets in Żwirki i Wigury Park have been removed (well, technically relocated a few dozen meters away to Curie-Skłodowska Street, but apparently, tourists still look for them in the old spot). Several new roundabouts have appeared as well.

The most unsettling thing, however, was that Staromiejska Street - Lębork's equivalent of Dublin's Grafton Street, a central pedestrian promenade - was completely empty! I remember it used to be bustling with life, crowded with people walking in all directions, lively and noisy. But now, it was utterly deserted. We walked the entire length of Staromiejska, and we maybe saw three people in total. Very strange.

After that, everyone went their separate ways - my wife to meet her friend, while I wandered around the town a bit more. On a whim, I dropped by a former colleague's place for a quick coffee. Finally, the momentous hour arrived, and I made it (with a slight delay) to the school reunion.

The experience was surreal. If I hadn't done my homework beforehand - refreshing my memory of everyone's names and photos - I wouldn't have recognized at least five people. But since I had prepared, I managed to greet everyone by name. 😉 I won't go into the details of the event itself, but I'll just say it was incredibly warm, fun, and laid-back. The catering didn't disappoint either - the food was delicious and served in quantities large enough to feed an army battalion.

Before I knew it, it was already 10 p.m., and it was time to call it a night. After all, we had an early train to Bydgoszcz the next morning, and my eyes had been drooping since Thursday.

I got back to Gdynia thanks to one of my classmates, who also left a bit earlier. Giving me a lift worked out well for him too, as it gave him a good excuse to leave the gathering before the party officially ended.

On the way, we picked up my wife from the city, and chatting about random things, we made it back to Gdynia without any trouble.

At our friends' place in Gdynia, the plan was to go to bed early since we had to catch a train in the morning. But, as you might have guessed, that plan didn't work out, and we ended up staying awake well past midnight.

Sunday

In the morning, eyes barely open. A bucket of coffee, a quick breakfast, and we didn't even properly say goodbye to everyone because they were still sleeping, in perfect harmony with the Sunday gospel of rest. Our friend gave us a lift to Gdynia Główna train station and headed off.

The InterCity Piast reaches speeds of 160 km/h at its peak, which my GPS app hilariously panicked was way over the 50 km/h limit for the city streets we were 'driving' through.

Unlike my photo-taking skills, the landscapes outside the window were absolutely stunning.

The train was very modern. In the corridor, there was a screen displaying detailed information about the journey (departure, destination, route, etc.). In the compartment, to my surprise, not only did each passenger have access to two USB chargers, but there was also a wireless (inductive) charger built into the coffee table. The last time I traveled with PKP, the height of innovation was a functional handle for closing the window. Fancy stuff!

I was also surprised that when my ticket was checked, I had to present an ID as well.

I also noticed a sign for the emergency window-breaking hammer that gave off a bit of a Shakespearean vibe.

And then there’s Bydgoszcz...

Everyone knows that old Polish joke where three gentlemen compare their wives' reproductive anatomy to various cities around the world. By the time someone mentions Bydgoszcz, the punchline is inevitable: 'Well, it's... a hole. Just a hole.' But it's one thing to know the joke and another to actually find yourself in Bydgoszcz in person. We arrived at the train station around 10:00 a.m., with our flight not departing until 14:55 - a solid five hours to kill. Normally, you'd wander around the city, sit in a café, or something similar, but following the rule that you need to be at the airport well in advance...

...we headed to the airport, optimistically assuming that we could grab a coffee there and pass the time like civilized people.

As we all know, people who've indulged in a bit too much spicy content (wink, wink) often have some very unrealistic expectations about how quickly a plumber shows up after a call. Similarly, having spent time at various airports, we assumed that an airport is a place where, 24 hours a day, there are plenty of people and open businesses, offering various ways to pass the time.

It turned out that you'd find more people on Staromiejska Street in Lębork on a Saturday evening than at Bydgoszcz airport at 11 a.m. on a Sunday. So here's how it was: apart from the main entrance doors to the terminal building, everything was closed, and there wasn't a soul in sight. The echo was bouncing off the walls. All that was missing was a tumbleweed rolling slowly across the deserted terminal.

...although perhaps, if one were to look hard enough...

Fortunately, we were utterly exhausted, so we managed to catch a nap on the benches in the entrance hall - of which, believe it or not, there are exactly two. Each seats three people. International airport my arse.

A visit to the restroom deserves its own epigram (or perhaps an epidram, if such a word doesn't exist yet, I propose it should). Two stalls. Attempting to lock the door in one resulted in the handle coming off entirely and staying in my hand. The toilet paper? A delightful mix of sandpaper texture and the width of a Christmas gift ribbon. Seriously, come on.

By early afternoon, the airport stopped feeling like the set of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. People started to appear, announcements crackled over the loudspeakers, and a semblance of normality began to emerge.

In the spirit of cosmic balance, since we arrived early, our flight was, of course, delayed. Fortunately, once the gates opened and we cleared passport control, we discovered there was some semblance of civilization beyond. The rest of the wait passed quite pleasantly with coffee, tea, and snacks. The prices were, of course, typical airport prices, but what can you do.

The landing in Dublin was rough, and the ryan-o-bus rocked side to side pretty hard even after touching down. The culprit turned out to be the remnants of Saturday's hurricane, which was still whipping through the area. I have to say, I deeply admire the pilots for managing to land in such a wind tunnel. Stepping out from the quiet cabin onto the stairs was a shock - the wind was howling so fiercely, it felt like it might blow my head clean off and rattle it around in my neck. But, thankfully, it didn't.

The drive home, traditionally powered by coffee and Red Bull, went smoothly and without incident (though the car did sway a bit in the wind).

We gave our friends a heartfelt thanks for their logistical support and let them retreat to their own space (they're in the middle of a house move at the moment, so this weekend wasn't exactly convenient for them - making us all the more grateful for their help). After some quick freshening up, we collapsed into bed and slept the deep, righteous sleep of the utterly exhausted - a full eight hours, for the first time in ages.

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