Lviv, Ukraine

The weekend after Thanksgiving Jim, Fuji and a friend, Juul set out for Lviv, Ukraine. It was about a 13 hour night train* from Odesa. Lviv is in the northwestern part of the country, near Poland and was once part of Poland (before WWII). It is a very historic and proud city. It was also a center of the Ukrainian independence movement and the people here are very nationalistic Ukrainian (as compared with Odesa which considers itself either "uniquely Odesan" or Russian.) Before we came to Lviv, we were warned to not speak Russian but only Ukrainian. We've heard first hand how some of our Odesans friends made the mistake of speaking Russian and one got punched. Not that we know that much Russian but our English got us along fine-luckily Ukrainians like Americans and like to practice their English.

*Actually, most trains are night trains which is great because it saves on an evening hotel stay. Also, much of Ukraine is flat farmland and except for the occasional stops, there isn't much but the "bread-basket" of fields to see. It's a great way to get around the country conveniently and inexpensively. The whole experience, including the conductors are a step back in time...they are typically russian looking women in uniforms who never seem to smile. Something out of a Dr. Zivago.

	We arrived in Lviv on Saturday morning and the city was barely awake. It took about an hour to find a coffee shop open!
It was nice to walk around the streets early & take some of these photos.
	The buildings are very colorful and it reminded us of places in the Czech Republic.
We arrived at the main center of town--at the Opera House and Freedom Avenue. It's a long pedestrian boulevard that later in the day was full of people. Here is Fuji and Juul. Fuji hadn't realized how short she was-or how tall Juul is!
	Jim and Juul walking toward "old town" (it all seemed old to us!?) Here you can see two churches in a row. This town was full of churches! There seemed to be one on every block-beautiful and old too.
In old town, almost all the streets are cobblestone, narrow and are not parallel. To the right is a corner with Jim and Juul. It was sort of three corners but really five; but the picture could not get it all. The map navigation was very difficult. So, we gave up on that and just used our senses and intuition to get around.
	By mid-day we had the town figured out and were navigating just fine! To the market and elsewhere (next link) and back again to old town! We ate dinner this night at the Yellow Submarine! We wish we took some pictures but didn't. It was a retro and antique Beatles theme and Beatles music. Funny the waiters all knew the words (you could hear them singing in English) but none of them knew English and there were only Ukrainian menus.