Slovakia: kosice

I love late spring. The weather is usually pretty good, there is green on the trees, and flowers are blooming. I also love this time of year because there are more holidays, and more holidays mean more time to travel. Long weekends are the best. I feel a lot more justified in leaving Ukraine when I have a long weekend.

I chose Kosice, Slovakia as a destination because I found cheap flights, and was able to meet up with a friend. According to Wikipedia, it is the second largest city in Slovakia. I'd never heard of it before booking the flights, but since I know very little about Slovakia in general that didn't surprise me.

My flight to Kosice, Slovakia left at 0400, which meant that my taxi was at 0200. (At that hour there is no traffic, and I knew I didn't need to be at the airport two hours early.) This meant I started packing around 0100. I know that's totally last minute, but it's how I usually do things. These times meant I didn't go to sleep, as there was no point. The flight was only an hour and a half, so I didn't sleep much there either. Basically, by the time I arrived in Kosice, I was completely knackered, and was still going to be up all day.

The airport in Kosice is small. Very small. It is the kind of airport that doesn't have a whole lot of flights, so it is dead most of the time. The arrivals hallway was dark after I exited baggage claim.

The sun wasn't up, and inside was dark. I had no idea what to do. Thankfully, this airport had free wifi.

I figured out there was a public bus into the city center, and thought it would be coming along around 0500. I figured wrong. It actually came at 0620. Thankfully it wasn't that cold, and the stop had a bench to sit on and was somewhat covered. Apparently I was the only one who didn't know the first bus comes at 0620, because about five minutes ahead of time, at least 15 people seemed to appear out of nowhere to catch the bus. They weren't travelers like me, so maybe they just lived out in the area and this was how they got to work?

The ride into the city was only about 15 minutes, I love fast rides like this. The bus dropped me off at the train/bus station, which was where I met up with Bo. He'd been on trains for a while, and had only arrived a bit earlier. It turned out that if I had taken a bus from the airport at 0500 I would've been waiting for him at the train station.

Bo and I walked into the old city center, which is pretty small. The whole city felt small, even though it had more than 100,000 people. We crossed the city center, which is basically a big church in the middle of an even bigger, stretched out diamond shaped platz. Very picturesque.

At that point, the sun was up, but it was still very early, and no one else was around. I took advantage and took photos, of course. The church wasn't yet open to visitors, we knew we would come back soon enough. We walked all the way to one end of the oval, just to see what was there, and because we needed to kill some time.

We found a statue for the peace marathon, which appears to have been run here regularly for a number of years. I don't know if it still takes place. There was a long wall, on which was inscribed the name of every winner of the race, along with the year, and where that runner was from. I really liked the variety of winning countries.

Our next sight was a random street sculpture. Well, not really a sculpture. Call it a modern art installation, It was a collection of keys, over 80,000 of them. They'd been grouped together in letter shapes, spelling out revoluce. The sculpture was made in 2010, by a czech artist, and made with donated keys. Very cool.

This street was split with a long parkway in the middle. Trees lined the parkway on either side, and there were benches along the way. Lovely. This is definitely a city for relaxing, there is no need to hurry around. There aren't that many specific sights to see. If we'd had one day longer we might've spent a couple hours sitting on one of these benches, reading.

We went to our booked accomodaton, which was not yet ready for us. Not surprising, considering checkout wasn't until nearly noon. We arranged with the landlord to meet back there in a couple hours.

We kept walking, and found a small church. Well, not big not small. I wasn't sure what kind of church it was, but as soon as I saw the iconostasis I put on a headscarf, just in case. What confused me was that there were pews as well, and I'm not used to seeing those in an Orthodox Church. It turned out to be a Greek Catholic church, so in my mind it was a mix of Christian and Orthodox in terms of decoration, if that makes sense. One of these days I'll sit down and read/learn the smaller differences between the various Orthodox churches around the world.

We followed a side street until we found a local farmers market. Fresh produce and flowers. Very cute. We both wanted some of the produce, but didn't want to carry it around. Not far from the market we found a small cafe that seemed a perfect place to spend an hour chatting, killing time until we could check in. It was a local cafe, the kind of place people go to have a quick coffee and perhaps a pastry of some kind. No booths, just tall tables and chairs. It was nice to relax.

We went back to our accomodation at the arranged time, and were able to check in. Sortof. The previous guests had left, so it wasn't totally clean, but we were able to drop off our bags, which was really all we wanted.

Back in the old town square, we found a stella called the Immaculata. According to my travel app it is a memorial to the victims of the plague. Sometimes I forget that the disease swept through much of Europe and killed so many people.

Since this was a holiday weekend, we could see some sort of stage being set up on the platz, just behind the plague memorial. Also in this area of the platz was a fountain with all the astrological signs. I found mine, and had Bo take a photo of me sitting there.

By this point the church was open to the public. We could see setup happening for a wedding, and guests were milling about outside.

Inside the church the photographer was taking shots of the whole thing. I loved the stained glass, and most of the decoration.

We opted to climb up the bell tower, paying 1.5 euro to do so. The staircase is very narrow, with a tight spiral. You get very cosy with anyone going the opposite way up or down the stairs. While going up there were a few places to step out of the staircase, into the bell area. Some of those bells are huge!

At the top we stepped onto a viewing platform that gave us lovely views over the entire city.

Back down on the platz, we spent a few minutes watching a big fountain set to music. There were a couple kids playing in the edge of the fountain too. The water was cold!

At the end of the platz we found a Tesco, and bought a few items, drinks in particular.

After Tesco we decided it was time for dinner. It wasn't really dinnertime, but we were hungry, so why not? We chose a place on the platz, with traditional Slovak food. Touristy, big portions, decent food.

As we turned around and walked toward the other end of the platz Bo noticed a lot of people dressed in traditional clothing, heading in the same direction we were. After we passed the church we saw why. There was a stage set up, and benches for the audience. Some of the benches were already filled, mostly with groups of friends or families.

This was when we remembered that it was a holiday weekend. Kosice was celebrating May Day. We watched four or five songs worth of traditional dancing, with different groups in different outfits doing each dance.

We went back to our flat, and figured out we could connect a keyboard to the big screen tv in the living room. We used internet to stream a movie I'd seen before. Apparently I was tired, as I fell asleep five minutes in! Ooops.

The next morning we slept in because we could. It was probably close to noon by the time we got out of the flat.

Our first sight of the day was what we called the Sister City Tree. Apparently Kosice has sister city relationships with cities around the world, as there were many branches listing distances to various cities around the world.

Across the intersection was a WW2 memorial, not terribly big. On another side of this intersection was another WW2 memorial, this one dedicated to Russian soldiers. (I think. I'm guessing this because of all the Russian names I saw.) There were a lot of pink and purple flowers, everything looked very pretty.

Eventually we wound our way back to the city center platz, stopping to take more photos of the church. There was a small landscaped area on one side of the church, very pretty. Very charming.

At this point we decided to try to find the tourist information office, stopping for ice cream and water along the way. I get distracted easily :)

The first place that called itself tourist information definitely wasn't the official place. This was a place that sold souvenirs, but also wanted you to sign up for their tours. We didn't.

We managed to find the official tourist information office, which wasn't marked nearly as well as it should have been. The lady gave us a nice map of both the city, and the entire region. She also gave us a couple ideas for day trips, and how to get to each place. I bought a few postcards there :)

Our next couple stops were for 'modern art.' One was an alley decorated with umbrellas, very cute and colourful. Another was a giant painted wooden shoes. We'd seen at least one other of these shoes in different places around the city, each was painted differently.

Next to the shoe was an archway entrance with a door leading to stairs. I saw a few people go in, and wondered where the stairs led. It turned out to be the old city hall. I was really surprised to find something so nice, it wasn't all the noticeable from the entrance.

The old city hall is well set up for a visit. There are signs describing what each room was used for, in Slovak and English. Some of the rooms were quite fancy. I exercised patience to get a couple photos without people in them. Entrance was free to the old city hall, yahoo!!

We managed to find the old Orthodox Synagogue, which unfortunately didn't look very good. The padlock on the door was rusted, and the steps in front were crumbling away. I took photos of the inscriptions and asked a friend to translate for me, very very sad. It turns out that there was a good size Jewish population in the area before WW2, but they were mostly deported, and very few returned. Judging from the condition of the synagogue, there was no active Jewish community anymore.

We walked back through the small park to the train/bus station to figure out timing for the next day. We figured out trains left regularly, so we weren't worried.

We had dinner at a local restaurant a bit away from the city center. Again, traditional Slovak food. The menu was huge!

This time we streamed one of my favourite movies, Hoosiers. I stayed away, repeating all the good lines, of course.

The next day we had breakfast in the flat, but that didn't stop us from stopping at a place that said it had pie on the menu. That turned out to be only somewhat accurate. I was not particularly impressed with the pie, but the tea was good. The choices available were cheesecake, carrot cake, coconut pie, and one other. Meh. When I hear the word pie, I want fruit pie, or meat pie.

Oh well.

Read the next post for what we did in both Presov and Bardejov.

When we came back from Presov we had sushi for dinner. Not great, not awful, but good nonetheless. I grew up in Indiana, so I don't have high expectations for sushi.

When we came back from Bardejov the next day we ended up going to the sushi place for food again, only this time we got it to go.

I caught a bus to the airport (which only comes every couple of hours!!) which was not open. Well, that's not quite true. The front hall was unlocked, but lights were off, and no one was there. I was really surprised at this, since it was less than two hours until my flight.

Fortunately, desk workers came in time for me to check in, go through security and passport control, and board my plane.

The end of another great trip. I need to see more of Slovakia. (I need to see more of everywhere!)

north carolina: asheville

The advantage to where Nancye lives (in Bristol, TN/VA,) is that it's close to a lot of other places worth visiting. A lot. One day we decided to do a day trip to Asheville, NC.
The drive to Asheville was only two hours or so. How awesome is that? We drove through the mountains, there were some wonderful views. So many places I would love to stop and hike for the day.
Since I was riding shotgun, I got to decide our itinerary for the day. My tripadvisor/triposo apps both suggested Asheville botanical gardens, which sounded nifty to us. The gardens are just outside the city, easy to get to. Follow the signs on the roads, don't rely on google maps directions, as those will take you to the wrong entrance.
We started in the visitors center to get maps and information about the gardens. There are some landscaped areas, and some wild areas. We also found a water fountain to fill up our water bottles. I wish water fountains with decent drinking water existed in more places. This area of the country in late July is already/hot and humid. You need a lot of liquid to stay properly hydrated.

We decided to stay with the landscaped areas, they were very nice. My favorite garden was probably the bonsai (pronounced bone-sai) garden. Quite a few of the trees were arranged in a small area, with descriptions of the trees as well as some history of this art.
We also saw a big model train, a garden arranged like a quilt, a quilt exhibit, and more. I bet the gardens are great in all four seasons. Nancye ended up buying a year long pass, I hope she gets to see the gardens in all the seasons. 
We drove into the city center and found parking, totally affordable :)
Nancye has been there before so she knew of a parking garage with a good location.
Our first stop in the city was called Lexington glassworks. We got to see guys blowing glass, making it into cups, vases, bowls, etc... Really pretty, I loved the bright colors. As the guys were working with the glass, they were also explaining what they were doing, and how it all works. They must've been so hot with the open furnace right there. I wish I had the money (and space to put things,) to buy pretty house stuff.
At that point we realized we were hungry. Asheville is full of restaurants. Heaps of them. It's a 'hippie' town, with a lot of focus on organic, healthy living. As we walked down the street there were cafes and restaurants everywhere, all of them independent.

A little further down the street we came to the park in the city center and found a festival of some kind in full swing. Yay for festivals and the food trucks that come with them. So many choices, we walked around all the trucks to see what was available. I ended up with a catfish sandwich and fried pickles. The sandwich was good, the pickles had too much breaking.
After people watching and eating, we continued walking. I wanted to find postcards, and ducked into a few stores, but totally struck out. Visiting a town like Asheville on a Sunday has one drawback: many stores and offices are closed. Oh well.
We did find a big church, but a mass was just starting so we didn't go in. It was pretty on the outside, I had to be satisfied with that. We also walked through a small park, it reminded me of people's park in Bloomington, IN. A bit on the sketchy side.

At that point we felt as though we had seen what we wanted to see, so we went back to the parking garage. On our way out of town we made two stops. One at Trader Joe's, because Nancye loves their sourdough bread. (And since I don't spend a lot of time in the states, I can always find something to eat/buy from that chain.)
The second stop was at a burrito shop. Neither one of us was hungry, as we had eaten just a couple hours ago, but one of nancye's friends said we had to try this place, so we got our burritos to go. BIG BURRITOS.
A couple hours later we were back in Bristol. I love day trips :)

hungary: budapest

When Katie was first planning her trip to Europe, she had to figure out where she was going to go...one family she babysits for in the states is half Hungarian, and when they found out she was going to Europe, they told her she had to go to Budapest, and stay in their family flat...when she told me, of course I agreed :)
We took the train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, and a bus from that train station to the Eindhoven airport...even the guidebook says Eindhoven isn't known for anything in particular, except for the increasing number of budget flights from this airport...

The flight was easy, as was landing in Budapest...Katie collected her bag and as we exited she saw the grandma of the family waiting for us...grandma drove us to the flat, gave us the nickel tour, then said she would be back in the morning...
She came back the next morning and walked with us to the metro stop...she also drew us a map, but I'm really glad she walked with us, as I never would've been able to follow her map...she also bought our first metro tickets, yahoo!

This first metro ride was only to the center of town, to an information office, where we picked up the Budapest card each of us had bought...the card entitled us to free entry to some sights, free public transport, and as couple other benefits...
The next chore was to find a ticket office where Katie could buy a train ticket to split, Croatia...after that was accomplished, we hopped back on the metro...
A couple stops later we got out, and picked a direction in which to walk...somehow we stumbled onto the platz in front of st Stephen's basilica...it's a big platz...

we didn't know what we were looking at, we had to check the map...how awesome that we stumbled across what is probably the most important church in the country...we ate lunch at a cafe on the platz...
We went in the church, I was really impressed...so was Katie...I'm not often impressed by churches anymore, but this church was worth it...around the back, in a small, closed off chapel, we saw the mummified hand of st Stephen...I don't remember the story of the mummified hand, I don't need to remember...I'm both fascinated and grossed out by mummies...

We walked out of the church, and down the street in front of the church...there were a couple cafés, a couple souvenir shops, and a couple office buildings on the street...at the end if the street we went right, to cross a small park...at each end of the park was a statue, each person was probably important...I found them picturesque :)
Between this park and the river was a big street...we crossed the street, and took in the view...we were on the pest side of the river, so we had a great view of the chain bridge, over to the Buda side, with the castle and such...an awesome view...

We walked across the chain bridge, which had been turned into a pedestrian bridge for the holiday...
I suppose now is a good time to mention that we visited Budapest over the festival of st Stephen, one of the biggest holidays of the year, as st Stephen is the patron saint of the country...
There were plenty of people out walking, enjoying the great weather and the holiday...heaps of people taking photos, of course...i don't know if everyone in the country gets the day before the official festival off, but it certainly seemed that way...

We walked each way along the river, checking out the food stalls set up for the holiday...one of the stalls was selling the official birthday cake of Hungary...there were two options, one of which was sugar free...(what's the pour of sugar free cake?)...we bought the other choice, which I was excited to try, until Katie told me she could smell and taste alcohol...booo...it looked good, I had to satisfy myself by smelling and looking...
After food, we found the funicular and took it up the hill...a short ride, but fun...unfortunately, not super cheap, and not included in the budapest card...it should be!

The funicular let us out at a spot on top of castle hill...we went right, walking past a couple impressive buildings...we turned right again as we came upon the church of st Matthew...otherwise known as the coronation church...this is where hungary's kings were crowned, though that no longer happens...
Katie wasn't as impressed by this church...I wasn't either, but it was by no means a shabby church...a small area on the second floor was a museum, with some history displayed...

At the back of the church is a bit of stone carving...according to the sign, this was the oldest stone carving still in it's original location in either the country or city...
After the church, we took a quick glance at the Fisherman's bastion, which had great views over the river...there is an entrance fee, but both of us were satisfied with what we saw for free :) ...(that and we didn't know where the actual paid entrance was)
We walked back in the direction of the funicular, stopping in a small supermarket for water and snacks...

From there we walked to the Budapest history museum...we got to a set of gates, only to find a folk festival taking place...the folk festival had an entry fee, and we weren't interested in the festival, but the only way to get to the museum was to go through the festival...argh...we showed our Budapest cards to the guys taking money, and explained where we wanted to go...one of them used his walkie talkie to speak with someone, then asked us to wait a couple minutes...

Eventually someone from the museum came out to escort us through the festival to the museum...(on the way back we had to do the same thing in reverse order)...
The museum itself covered a large period of history, I don't think it's possible to really take in everything in one visit...my favourite exhibit was the one that showed various habitations of people in the Budapest area through history...from small homes to soviet style apartment blocks and everything in between...we didn't have time to see everything in the museum before closing time came...

After this museum, we took the funicular back down the hill, then went back to one of the food stalls for dinner...then we walked back across the river, and followed the bank of the river for a bit...we had purchased tickets for an evening river cruise, a popular tourist activity...(totally worth it)
It took us a while to find the exact company with which we'd booked, then the lady tried to tell Katie she didn't have a reservation...she was actually quite rude about it...I was watching what she was typing, and realized she was typing the reservation number incorrectly, and told her so...she was only slightly contrite when she had to face her mistake...
We boarded the boat and I took a couple photos of Buda hill, brightly lit up across the water...as the boat started to move, we put on our earphones and listened to the spiel...it was a bit confusing (they were trying to be creative) but I enjoyed learning something about a few of the buildings we passed on the river...

both Katie and I noticed the family in front of us had wasted the money they'd spent on this cruise...both parents were glued to their phones, barely looking up, not wearing the headphones...the oldest kid was also attached to her phone, taking several selfies and texting them two friends...the two youngest kids were running around, but at least they looked out the window a couple times...
Anywho, after the cruise ended, we took the metro home and went to bed fast...

The next morning was the festival of st Stephen...(the festival is only one day officially, but preparations take a bit longer and some events take longer)...
We'd read in the guidebook that there is still a crown of Hungary, though there is no longer a monarchy...the crown is occasionally displayed for the public in the halls of parliament, on holidays...we figured this must be one of those days...we took off early in order to get to parliament before the expected queue got too long...our timing worked out well, as there was a queue, but it wasn't too long...

the line started moving soon, and moved steadily...occasionally we looked back to see the line growing quickly...
Eventually we got to the front of the queue, and went through security...we followed everyone up the stairs into a grand entry hall, marveling at just about everything...while on the boat tour we'd heard there are something like 11km of stairs/hallways in parliament, we only saw a small amount...after the entry hall we followed into the next room, which was where the crown was displayed...there were guards around the walls of the room, I think nearly the only thing they did all day was tell people photos were not allowed in that particular area...that didn't stop some people, who still took photos from other sports when the guards weren't looking...both Katie and I were surprised that the crown wasn't very shiny, it didn't seem very blingy...it's not as if I have heaps of experience with crowns to be able to make such a judgement, but I remember being under impressed...

After exiting parliament, we walked as far as we could to the banks of the river...unfortunately this was when we came to the point where we were not happy about the holiday festival, as the sidewalks this close to the water were blocked off by fences...argh...we'd wanted to see a modern art piece on the sidewalk, we had to settle for seeing it from a distance, through the fence...
We walked along the river back toward the centre area, eventually getting to the great synagogue...it's the biggest synagogue in Europe...we had to wait in a short queue to buy entrance tickets, which was annoying only because it was raining...the worship area had several tour groups, the guides giving information quietly...

There was an upstairs area that had been turned into a museum...some exhibits showed items used in Jewish life, some showed the history of this synagogue and it's congregation, and some showed some of what happened in the Holocaust...a small museum, but I liked it because I was able to absorb the information without feeling overwhelmed...
There was a memorial garden out back...very peaceful...
Lunch was in a random cafe across the street...
From the cafe we took a tram across a different bridge to the chapel in the rock...the entrance fee included an audio guide (a bit too preachy for me) so we learned more than the guidebook said...various chapels had different stories to tell...the church is more of a natural cave that has been carved out a little more to make a small church...

Across the street from the chapel is the Gellert baths, some of the biggest in the city...the lobby area was pretty impressive...
More walking (back across the bridge and down a pedestrian street) took us to Gerbaud...Katie's friends in the states told us we had to go there for tea, and I'm so glad we did...everything on the menu looked good, it took us a while to figure out what we wanted...it was very well presented, and really good...(and our waiter was good looking too:)...
After tea we used the subway and more walking to get to lukacs baths...our Budapest cards included free entrance to these baths, of course we wanted to know what all the fuss was about...
There wasn't much English inside, it took us a while to figure out where to go and what to do...but once we did, it was fun...the baths were all heated to different temperatures, (the coldest was 32C and the hottest 40C)...everyone moved around every so often...we were plenty pickled by the time we left...

As we walked toward a metro stop to get home, we crossed another bridge, covered with people staking out a spot for the fireworks scheduled that evening...I bet people come out there pretty early in the day, the bridge spots were a great place to see everything...we heard most of the show, which was impressive...loud too...
That was our last night in Budapest...we took the metro home, it wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected, considering all the people out to see the fireworks...
The next morning both of us were up, and left the city...I have to go back!

lviv's chocolate festival round 2

my first year in ukraine i visited lviv twice...this year i decided to return in february to attend (again) the chocolate festival hosted by the city, and just enjoy being out of kyiv for a weekend...
i traveled with one of my coworkers and friends, camille...we took a night train friday night from kyiv, arriving in kyiv early saturday morning...we were in separate cars on the train, because i hadn't bought the tickets very far ahead of time...this was camille's first night train, so it freaked her out a bit, as she speaks even less russian than i do (which is practically nothing)...i can understand this, as she didn't know the 'traditions' of a ukrainian night train...

i'd made a reservation at a hostel, so we walked from the station to the hostel to see if we could check in...i'm really glad i printed out a map and marked the location of the hostel as well as written the address, it ended up being in a place we would not have found easily...we were the only people there except for the owner, who spoke absolutely no english...we stayed in a dorm room even though i'd booked a double...i think the owner was trying to say we would have the room to ourselves?
anywho, we started walking around town, i showed camille the sights i liked as we passed...lviv is so easy to walk around, nearly everything is within walking distance...

we ate lunch at a mircrobrewery i love...the menu is extensive, and everything on the menu is good...as usual, i ordered too much, and ate too much:)
we continued walked around town during the afternoon, looking into churches and shops, and generally enjoyed the atmosphere of the city...we took public transport to a huge local cemetary, and explored an area i hadn't seen previously...camille practiced reading russian/ukrainian by reading the names on the tombstones/gravemarkers...i found the area for soldiers who fought when the area was polish, that area was particularly organized...i'm guessing there were specific battles mentioned, but i don't remember...

we visited the chocolate festival that evening...after last year's experience, when i got sick, i was a bit nervous that the same thing would happen...there was more chocolate available for free, but i only ate one piece...(shocking, i know, as i don't normally have much in the way of self control)...i enjoyed seeing some of the huge chocolate blocks being carved, seeing the final sculptures created...
we spent most of the next day on the train...since i bought our train tickets so late, a day train back to kyiv was our only option...i'd never ridden a day train from kyiv, so it was actually kinda neat to do so:)...i spent time reading, napping, chatting with camille, etc...

a weekend out of the city is different when you arrive back sunday evening, but i still enjoyed the trip to lviv...i'm sure i'll go back again:)
i should mention that my visit to lviv was much warmer this time than it was last february...last year it was -20C or so as cloe and i walked around all day...this year it was 'only' -5C...both temperatures are cold, but believe me when i say -5C seems almost balmy in comparison to -20C!!

lviv au chocolate

cloe and i have already visited the hometowns of two of our coworkers, so we figure we might as well visit the hometowns of all our coworkers...lviv is the most visited city in ukraine, and is the hometown of the ukrainian teacher at school...bo and ben left me a brochure/guidebook/advert about lviv, and while reading it a week ago, i noticed a chocolate festival scheduled to take place this weekend...needless to say, a chocolate festival sounded perfect...who doesn't want to see 3 tons of chocolate carved into a city?!?! i suppose not everyone loves the stuff as much as i do, hee hee...
we left straight from school, and took an express train to lviv...it arrived a little late, and we took a taxi to the hostel cloe had booked...i'm glad she booked something, i really hate arriving somewhere so late at night, in the cold...fortunately, it's easier to find hostels in lviv than it is in almost any other city in the country...they seem to be allowed to have at least one sign, which seems awesome to me now...
our room was a double (both of us are over doing the dorm thing unless it's absolutely necessary - this was good because the guy who checked us in said many others staying in the hostel were out partying that night) with a photo of lenin overlooking the beds...a bit creepy, to say the least...the hostel was called soviet home hostel (i think) so there were old soviet items and photos all over...

the next morning we got ready, and made it out the door around 1030...no specific breakfast to speak of, oh well...our first stop was the ratusha, which is the bell tower in the middle of the big square in the middle of the city...this square has been given UNESCO world heritage status, the buildings lining the square are all old, and traditional...nearly all of them are 3 windows across; back in the day when they were built, you were taxed by the number of windows, and anything above 3 meant you had a lot of money...most of them seemed to be 3 or 4 stories tall as well...
i should've paid more attention, or at least had a better memory, but i didn't recall the guidebook saying too much about stairs...so it was a bit of a surprise to climb a whole heap of them to get to the top of the tower...a LOT OF STAIRS...we were both pretty winded by the time we got to the top...it was a nice view over the city...on a really clear day you can probably see quite a long way...as it was, we could see the snow covered roofs everywhere...interesting to see the churches all over the city...some of them green, some wooden, some golden...

from the ratusha we stumbled back down the stairs (i fell once, and nearly fell several other times) and attempted to follow the walking tour lonely planet has in it's guidebook...the tour started with a statue of shevchenko, the bard of ukraine...i don't know when he lived, but there is a statue of him in kyiv, and probably other cities as well...we also walked past a giant truffle in front of the opera house...a GIANT truffle...apparently the chocolate festival has inspired chocolate companies in town to build giant versions of their goods:)...we wanted to go in the giant truffle, but there were security guys in front of the door...too bad...maybe it was open later? we never did find out...
we took a right at the end of that street, and next tried to enter a church...not only is lviv known for having gbillions of churches, many of them are catholic, which isn't common in the country as a whole...howeva, since this area was once part of poland (i think) it is strongly catholic...unfortunately, this church was closed...(this ended up being a theme through the day)...it wasn't at all interesting on the outside...
walking up another street we wanted to see another church, it's doors were also closed, it was also particularly unappealing on the outside...boooo...our next attempt at actually seeing something was successful, as we found the street we wanted, then found a children's playground...a giant mural on the wall behind the playground was super brightly coloured, i loved it...the playground is built in an area that was destroyed during

from the playground our next stop was a marker in the middle of a very small park, denoting where a synagogue used to stand...not only is lviv catholic, there also used to be a large jewish population...unfortunately, most of those people either left during WWII, or were killed in the concentration camps...at least one area in lviv was a jewish ghetto, it's inhabitants killed in a massacre...unfortunately, this marker is one of the only reminders of lviv's former jewish life...in preparation for the EURO in june, the city government has actually destroyed some history, in an effort to have more hotels and such...how awful...
then we found yet another church...another closed church...

At that point we decided the walking tour wasn't really working for us...a lot of the tour was about churches, particularly the insides of churches...but none of the churches we were going to were open for us to see inside...so we stopped in a cafe (where i had a very yummy, very thick, hot chocolate) and plotted strategy...

cloe was freezing, and wanted to eat...i was keen for that as well...we also decided to skip walking up to a fortress of some kind, we figured we'd already seen the view of the city from the top of the ratusha...

instead, we decided to try to find the information office, then eat lunch, then go to a cemetary, then go to the chocolate festival...(which was the entire reason we came to lviv!)...we found both an official and an unofficial information office, we bought souvenirs at both...lviv is soooooo much better set up for tourists than any other place in the country...kyiv really needs to get its act together...on our way to try to get a discount card for a dinner restaurant, i spotted a cafe sign that had a choco boom...who can turn down a choco boom? Definitely not me...so we stopped again, i had my choco boom...chocolate on the bottom, then milk, then coffee, then cream...it looked so lovely...i don't really like coffee at all, so that was not so fun, but the rest of the drink was great...i think cloe had something with the word surprise in the name?

After accidentally seeing a second hand book market (at which i bought a ukraine guidebook – in english! - for the whopping price of 20UAH) and taking photos, then a church with a wedding in progress, we finally made it to lunch...an armenian place...tasty food:)...then the armenian church next door...though again, we weren't able to go inside...what's with this city?

Then we caught a marshrutka to the cemetary...the cemetary is mentioned in the guidebook, it's HUGE...if you ever go to lviv, you've got to see it...not many tombstones/gravemarkers there are "ordinary"...people buried there all seem to have larger than life representations on top of their graves...a few mausoleums too...
with the snow, it was gorgeous...i've heard it's amazing in just about any weather...it was quiet, that's for sure...(except for the sound of the snow under our shoes, which was pretty nifty)...i think there are some famous people buried there, but the only name we recognized was ivan franko (i think that's right?)...there are heaps of people with polish names buried there (not surprising since this part of ukraine was once part of poland) as well...we didn't see the entire cemetary, but we did see a lot, and at one point we realized we were freezing...again...that's what you get for traveling in the middle of winter...

after waiting what seemed like yonks (but was probably only 10 minutes or so) we caught a marshrutka back to the city center and started walking toward the chocolate festival location...i insisted on stopping in a church on the way there...it was open, so that was a plus...a service was going on, but we weren't the only tourists walking through at the same time...i don't remember what kind of church it was, but the inside had baroque decor...it felt...busy...an old lady yanked off my hat and jabbered at me, i really wish i had been able to understand what she was saying...

and then, we finally got to the chocolate festival...i could smell the fantasticness almost as soon as we were in the door...after we paid our entrance fee of course...i'm not sure what the point of the entrance fee was, since nearly everything else had to be paid for as well...hmmm...

the first thing we saw was two guys carving a giant block of milk chocolate...there was a picture of what it would look like when they were done, it was interesting to see how far they'd gotten...then we wandered...more than anything it seemed as if there were booths and booths and booths selling chocolate...chocolate in various shapes, filled donuts dipped in chocolate, melted chocolate served as hot chocolate, fondue, etc...there was an area on the second floor where kids were able to do crafts with chocolate...one lady was painting in chocolate...another man was creating a heart from liquid chocolate...there was a giant pyramid of chocolate macaroons...there were dresses, i think the idea was that they were inspired by chocolate? I didn't much like the styles...(maybe i've watched too much project runway?)...

after walking around the entire thing, cloe and i decided what we wanted to buy...(going in we'd both known we'd want something, but planned to see everything before spending any money)...i got the 'hot chocolate' and she got the chocolate covered donut...and when i say covered, i mean dipped in a pot of liquid chocolate, so there was chocolate EVERYWHERE...she took a photo as i started with my hot chocolate, and the caption she put on facebook is something along the lines of that being my last smile for a few days...she was right...i wasn't able to finish the entire cup (too rich, believe it or not) and didn't feel very good afterward...cloe loved her donut and went to buy truffles and more after finishing eating...

at that point i really wasn't feeling good, and knew i needed to eat something real...we thought about what we'd eaten all day, and realized i'd had a LOT of sugar/chocolate and very little else...a bit at lunch, but that was it...breakfast was sugar, then the hot chocolate at the cafe, then the choco boom, lunch with an ice cream dessert, then the chocolate fest...whoa...i eat a lot of sugar on a regular basis (much more than most people could handle, or would even want) but it was a lot even for me...so we started trying to find real food...

the first place we tried was a buffet (milk bar) listed in the guidebook...it turned out to be closed for the evening...next we tried the masochist bar (the original masochist (named masoc i think?) spent some of his life in lviv!) but the only open seats were right next to the door, and i was tired of being cold all the time...then we tried another restaurant which didn't have any open seats, even though we could see a few open places...finally we tried a random greek/pizzeria...success!!

the menu was huge, it took a while just to figure out what we wanted...or maybe that's cause i wasn't feeling so good, and couldn't think properly...we started with salad...a while later i moved on to soup, cloe had pasta...basically we used the time in that restaurant to wait until we needed to go to the train station...

again, ukrainians are super helpful and friendly to foreigners...the guy bussing our table called a taxi for us...how awesome is that??!! for me, the train ride back wasn't particularly great...i was still feeling poorly, and breakfast the next morning back in kyiv wasn't so tasty...actually, the only thing i had was orange juice...cloe had already started to tease me about chocolate...ugh...

on a side note, i ended up being very very sick later that day, i even called in sick to work the next day...yuck...the day after that, when i went back, (which happened to be valentines day) everyone kept offering me chocolate just to see the "i'm going to puke" look on my face...they're used to seeing me eat massive amounts of sweets, it was humourous to them to see even the thought of such things make me want to run to the loo!...not nice i tell you...not nice!!

it took me a week to eat anything with processed sugar again...it took me a week even to want to eat anything with processed sugar!! on a sad note, i didn't lose any weight during that week...how did that work? Argh...