My knowledge is a little dated, went there in August 2005, but:
Poland is awesome. Another American buddy of mine and I went to stay with a Polish friend of ours in Poznan and travel around for two weeks.
Everything was very cheap, although who knows how much that has changed post-financial crash. The zloty was five to the pound (I was living in England then), so drinks at nice places were like a pound apiece.
People are pretty friendly, girls are hot, and nearly all thin. However, few of them speak English (…or at least they were telling us that). Say “dobra dubcha”, they love that. Oh, and they wear wedding rings on the right hand. Learned that the hard way.
Bars and clubs are open very late, unlike the UK.
Food is good and cheap, they eat a lot of pig. There’s a great sheep’s cheese they have down south in Krakow, they serve it cooked with some kind of cranberry topping, awesome.
You can get Zywiec in a lot of bars in the UK now, but it’s much stronger, and tastes better, in Poland.
If you can, travel. We didn’t go to Gdansk, heard it’s kind of industrial and not that great. But Poznan is really nice, lot of fun bars, good sized place. Krakow is even better, it’s a long drive (from Gdansk maybe 12+ hours I’m guessing), but worth it.
If you’re in Gdansk, drive a couple hours (east I think) to this little seaside resort town called Mielno. We had an awesome time there. Didn’t spend much time in the Baltic, it was freezing, but tons of cheap bars, Poles go there to vacation, great time. Like a Polish Mexico, and I mean that in a good way.
I got a week’s worth of workouts in, gyms aren’t great, but you can find them. The one in Mielno was cool, one room hole in the wall place with weights and nothing else. I like those.
