From the beginning: May 1 is quite the holiday across Eastern Europe (the original proletariat-inspired Labor Day). May 3 is also a holiday in Poland, so we had a long weekend during which we planned our trip. I had consulted numerous friends who have been there before during the year or in previous years, and they said that there wouldn't be a problem with finding hotels or anything. That was our first mistake - not reserving a hotel. Remember how I said it was a big holiday weekend? Yes, and in that time, many other people from all countries bordering Ukraine came to the beautiful city of L'viv and reserved ALL of the hotel/hostel spaces! Great. So the three of us (me, my Polish friend, Adam, and another American girl, Lydia) wasted our first day zig-zagging clear across the city numerous times trying to find a roof to put over our heads to avoid spending the night in the rain that was beginning, and increasing in panic with each passing moment.
BUT we found a Ukrainian angel. During the course of the circus of a border crossing between Poland and Ukraine, a blonde, cherubic-faced girl named Ania sat on the bus from the Ukrainian side of the border next to Adam. They talked the whole way into L'viv. Turns out she studies at my university in Kraków but was coming home to L'viv for the weekend. She gets off at a stop closer to her her flat and leaves Adam with a list of Ukrainian beers to try and her phone number with the condition, "give me a call if you run into any problems." 6 hours later, we had a problem.
Ania graciously welcomed us into her flat where she lives with her mother about 20 minutes outside the city center. It was around 11 pm when we arrived, but she flitted around the apartment making us tea and sandwiches, preparing the beds in the spare rooms and rattling off billions of suggestions (orders, rather) of things we should see and do in her beloved city. It was a sheer miracle. The next morning, she called around and found us ONE open hotel room for the night, prepared us a lovely traditional breakfast and even hunted down a Lvovian violin maker's phone number that my friend was looking for. With the utmost feeling of gratitude we left Ania and her Polish-speaking mother with plans to meet again in Krakow.
Then, we finally began our sightseeing. We went first to the Lychakiv Cemetery and reveled in the Polishness of olden day L'viv. Then the Rynok, the Prospekt and many, many churches. L'viv is the farthest east I have ever been in my life, and while it is a mere 6 hours away from Krakow, I really felt the difference thanks to the Greek and Russian Orthodox Catholic influences. Oh yeah, there's the whole Cyrillic writing things too that reminds you that you are not really in Poland anymore, but I digress... So as we were visiting one of the beautiful Orthodox churches near the Rathus, a service appeared to be going on, so we were hesitant to enter. And should we decide to go in, were we cover out heads? A girl by the door noticed us and, laughing a bit, said something to us in Ukrainian. I mumbled something in Polish, and then this girl with her sweet face started a conversation with us in earnest trying to remember the Polish she once learned. We told her were were from Krakow and were just sightseeing. At one point, Lydia did her characteristic, "Jestem Lydia," sticking out her hand for a good ol' American handshake. That sealed the deal; we were going to be friends.
Natalya, our new coincidental acquaintance, it turns out, was showing around a friend from Eastern Ukraine for the weekend, so if we would like we could go with them up to the Vysoki Zamek and around. It was amazing. Our little group kept growing with friends of Natalya who kept meeting us along the way and trying, in Polish, Ukrainian and English, to be our personal and enthusiastic tour guides. They took us to fun cafes, through Shevchenkivskyi Hai, where they had packed a huge picnic lunch for us, to Puszata Chata for artery-saturating Ukrainian food, and did I mention that Natalya said we could spend our last night in her flat? Miracle of miracles!
The whole trip was like that - a parabolic wave of extreme stress to being rendered speechless by hospitality. Take, as another illustration, our attempt to go the opera. We wanted to see La Traviatta on Saturday night. We walked up to the ticket counter and (un)fortunately all the tickets were sold out. But wait! A older lady who seemed to be a tour guide offered to take us inside to check out the theater and the interior for a mere 20 hryvni (a quarter of the price of a normal opera ticket). We accepted; what else were we going to do with our afternoon? The woman only spoke Ukrainian, and while Adam and I could speak Polish with her, it didn't always work out for our understanding the situation. The woman led us around and left us in the theater with about 20 minutes before the curtain goes up for the opera. We keep looking around, snapping pictures, trying out the plush chairs, and the woman comes back with chairs that she sets up in the aisles. So we go from ticketless schmuck tourists to sitting in the front row at the L'viv opera! So many other of our experiences followed that same pattern. I would explain how we got back home to Poland, but that would take another epic post, and I fear I have gone on far too long already. Let's just say it was the same ride of emotions and same experience of being rejected point blank or not given any helpful information. (As another side note, how can someone sitting at the window marked "Information" at the freakin' train station tell you she doesn't know about any trains to Krakow??!!)
So in a nutshell, that was my trip to L'viv. With a little more distance and time between me and that trip-of-a-lifetime, I can really begin to appreciate what a spectacular time it was. I would LOVE a chance to go back! Who wants to come with me? ;)
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