Think that I was able to find the street on which Oma and Opa's shops were located. Haven't got the courage up yet, though, to ask a 'local' and find out for sure. I spent the day just wandering around Gdansk and getting a feel for the city. My hostel is actually really close to the main drag, and there is a lovely strong sea breeze off the river *hee* that reminds me of home. :)

Aunt Ursula told me that she remembered their place as being located on breitgasse, which Google tells me is now called Szeroka. Ursula said it was near the KranTor (Crane Gate).

Gdansk was a fortified city, so all along the Motlawa river, there is a high wall with various gates with differerent names, like Green Gate, Golden Gate, Bread Gate, etc. The Crane Gate is where they had a giant crane (the biggest one in medieval times) for loading and unloading the boats they brought cargo from the sea. It is actually located at the end of Szeroka.

Aunt Ursula also said their place was a couple blocks from the main center of the city. Szeroka is just a few streets over from Dlugi Targ, the main street where the town hall and fountain and famous burgher/patrician houses are located.

The street is now a purely residental one. However, the historical information I have found (bought a book), says that the old houses all used to have wide porches before the city was destroyed. (It was 90% destroyed in WW2). So it is totally possible that there used to be shops on that street, since the buildings are similiar to the shop buildings a few streets over. So...I took a lot of pictures! I have a long time here, yet, so I will see what else I can unearth!

Okay, from your terrific comments I see I should provide some additional information. (By the way, thank you again for making me smile and laugh...I shared some of them with Abi (short for Abigail), this girl from England who is staying here at the hostel. She is terrific and we are planning a boat trip to the Hel Peninsula (just north of Gdansk - not far) on Sunday when she gets back from visiting Krakow).

So, let's see if I can answer at least one or two of them. Um, first, Mom, no, haven't noticed any special hats. The Deutsche Polizei wear these cute little green berets. :) But the only thing that I really noticed is that lots of Polish people, young ones, have shirts with American sayings. A girl on the train from Szczein had a shirt, for example, that said Hawaii. She spoke no English and I'm pretty sure she'd never been that. But there you go. Her boyfriend had some kind of rough wear shirt with English writing. Saw a girl inline skating on the boardwalk today with a sweatshirt that said Boston. Kind of funny, since most people only seem to speak Polish. However, the church I visited (St. Mary's) had its signs in Polish, German, and English. I hear that the musuems are very similiar, with English translations.

As far as most memorable flavor, so far I haven't really eaten anything that unusual. I am working up my courage to try an 'authentic' Polish meal at one of the cafes here. Mostly I have been eating bread/cheese/salami and fruit for breakfast and dinner (bought from a local market), with lunch at some cheap touristy place. I did have cottage cheese this morning (yes, pastuerized, I checked - most of the places around here are pretty modern also because of the tourist trade - like they have a Rossman's, which is a big German drugstore chain - with L'Oreal and Clariol and Johnson & Johnson products). Anyway, the cottage cheese was funny only because it was really, really rich. It made me feel that I should have had strawberries with it. When I was in Berlin I treated myself to this amazing all-you-could-eat buffet at the hostel and their cream cheese was AMAZING. Of course, I am a cream cheese freak anyway, but this was so smooth and creamy it was like dessert. Ditto with the yogurt. I'm sure it has a million calories, but hey! I am walking so much, I am not that worried.

So, I will make that one of my goals before I leave Poland...to have some bigos (their traditional sauerkraut-y type specialty) and beetroot soup. I will provide a full report!

So, thank you again for all your lovely comments! Hope that you are all doing well... do wzciedena!