The Roamin' of three of the Wyomans: Day 8

Day 8

Starts at 3 AM.

When we first started planning the Eastern European road trip, S2 had the idea of including the Ukraine on our itinerary. This was before Vladimir Putin and the Russians moved into the Crimea. Even once they did, the two of us maintained the conflict was in EASTERN Ukraine, not WESTERN Ukraine where Lviv is located. We started reading about Lviv some years ago. It is deemed the Paris of the east, and void of tourists.

A few searches on the internet reveals there are indeed intrepid travelers making their way in and out of the Ukraine with no problems. Well, at least the blogs I read. Our Romanian and Bulgarians contacts discouraged us from driving in, sharing stories of 8 hours to go 2 kilometers, just to cross a border. So I looked at alternative modes of transport. It was undoubtedly a middle-age bit of wisdom that prompted me to look seriously at the idea of train travel.

The only problem I could see was the once a day train that leaves the Polish border town of Przemyśl at 4 in the morning AND the train BACK arrives at just after midnight. So, how can we take a night train, return on a night train AND keep the car, the bike and everything we don't carry with us safe in Poland?

The Crocus Hotel, with a friendly proprietor who speaks superb English, despite his constant apologies for not speaking English became the answer. He worked for years on cargo ships, learning the languages of various countries. He speaks Spanish as well. He checked us in for two nights, assured us everything would be fine, had Stewart put his bike in his shed, and asked us to drive the car up onto the lawn so he could always see it from the reception office.

He even waved good bye to us as we left at 3:30 this morning to walk the 10 minutes to the train station. NS marveled at what a great setting for a story we were walking through ... Dark, foggy, a cool mist in the air ... No black cats darted across our path, and we aren't in the right country for Dracula.

There might have been 6 people at the train station at that hour, and we were the only ones on our platform. Much to my surprise, a train appeared long before I expected. It had two sleeper cars, and the engine disconnected and chugged away before we were even in our compartment.

It was a VERY cool compartment, with 3 sleeper bunks, already made up. Great, just fall back asleep. Not exactly, Polish immigration entered, not one, not two, but FOUR officials inspected our passports. This included holding some sort of monocle next to EACH page of the passport. What were they looking for? I had this sense that they didn't see too many U.S. Passports, and so they ALL needed to check out the watermarks, holograms, and whatever else are hidden in U.S. Passports. This could be things they only read about in books. Here was a real live example. We were stamped out of Poland, and allowed to find some sleep, but not much, because soon we were in the Ukraine ... And those Immigration officials came to collect passports. They didn't seem as enthralled, as they stamped the whole train in less time than the Polish officials took with our passports. Ahhh, back to sleep... No, next came the ticket conductor announcing our arrival in 20 minutes.

Thus, we arrived n Lviv, feeling jet lagged and only crossing one time zone. We stumbled around the train station getting money from an ATM. Only to return to the ATM when we discovered we'd only taken out about 8 Euros and needed 30 euros each to buy our return tickets. Great, now we had tickets back, but were still tired, hungry, had to go to the bathroom, and suddenly outside in the blinding sunlight.

Moscow days flashed before me as we headed into town on a tram that immediately was caught in gridlock. Our tram couldn't move until a different tram moved, and that one couldn't move until a taxi moved, and the taxi couldn't move until we moved. The trams won!

The Cyrillic alphabet (most of which Nathalie can read...it took her less than 5 minutes to recognize Ukrainian had an 'i' that Russian does not) as well as the fashion, the faces of the people, the architecture, and the general sense of renovating, remodeling, rebuilding, and rejuvenating ...makes it all feel so familiar.

What is the name of this street anyway?

S2's watched pick up games of Dominoes in the park, NS continues to search for bliny, and we all marvel at the height of the heels the women wear while walking on cobblestone streets.

We've stepped inside a few amazing cathedrals (one appeared to have a Hello Kitty balloon stuck next the the amazing ceiling fresco of the Virgin Mary), admired the outdoor handicraft market, and glanced at the outdoor book market. Not very many books in English, but one title that stood out was "Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology". We saw students lining up for graduation, an informal,wedding procession, and a coin operated water fountain requiring every client to use the same glass. And lots of tourists...just not Americans, and not Western Europeans.

We had breakfast at Centaur, lunch at Casanova, and our dinner plans include a stop at Three Broomsticks, complete with a full-size statue of Harry Potter out front.

Dinner just got very cool for the Harry Potter fans on the trip. We settled on Dragon Meat, Lupine Salad, Butter Beer, Magic Potion, and Pills for Levitatio (claiming you can fly after you eat it). We might get some photos.....