ukraine: drohobych and lviv

I booked my train tickets to/from lviv rather last minute, only the Monday before I traveled...I was supposed to meet a friend there, but that didn't end up happening 😞...funny how travel plans can happen in a hurry...
My train arrived around 0600 or so, I walked into the city center as I always do, taking a few new streets along the way...lviv always has something new for me...as the sun came up I saw it was going to be a beautiful day, total sunshine...
I spent some time in my favourite cafe on the square, starting my day with chocolate cake and mint tea...yum, even if not the healthiest option...
When cloe and I visited lviv in February 2012, one of the first things we had done was go to the top of the tower in the ratusha, the city hall...on a clear day the views all around are great...I decided to do it again...

I'm pretty sure the entry fee hadn't changed, it was only 10griven...(at today's exchange rate, that's less than 50cents of an American dollar)...how awesome is that? It's always windy up there, but I love the views...
After wandering through more streets, I made my way to my hotel, they let me check in early...yippee! I warmed up and charged my phone for an hour or so before heading back to the train station...
Before coming to lviv this time id looked at trip advisor, seeing if there were any nearby towns that might be worth a day trip...Drohobych was on the list...I bought a ticket, and 90 minutes later arrived in drohobych, Ukraine...a very modern, express train...
Drohobych is not a big town...I don't think it gets many visitors, and few, if any foreigners...the train station is on the edge of town, it was an easy walk to the city center...

Just on the other side of the city centre are the two reasons most people come to drohobych...two wooden churches...they're both small, and old, but still beautiful...the wood is very faded, but I loved it...one is called st George's, I don't remember the other name...
On the way back to the city center I passed another church, I decided to peek in...by doing so I stumbled into a wedding...yay! Ukrainian weddings aren't the same as what you often see in the states...a small group of people attends the service in ukraine, I'm thinking immediate family and one or two people to stand up for the two getting married...I didn't stay long, but I always love seeing people on such an important day of their lives...
I walked around the square in the middle of which is city hall complete with a tower...(I couldn't figure out which entrance would've taken me to where I could climb up the tower)...

I walked to a park, on one side of which was another church...I saw a couple having wedding photos taken in the area...very pretty...
I followed the street until I came to the end, about 200m down the perpendicular street on the other side was something you see in every ukrainian town...a WW2 memorial...as usual, it was big...I followed a different street back toward the center, getting slightly lost...after figuring out where I was, I walked through a small market, finally locating a place to buy postcards...I bought three sets, her entire stock 😀...
I made my way toward a synagogue, which unfortunately was closed, a gate was locked in front...I don't know if it was being renovated or it was just closed...pretty from the outside though...i wonder if it will ever be open to visitors...i hope so...

I followed another street back to the train station...I thought about taking a marshrutka back to lviv, but when I looked in, all the seats were already taken...booo...
so I bought a ticket for the next train available...the ticket was so cheap I thought I'd made a mistake of some kind! (Only 11griven!)...it turned out to be an electric train that goes back and forth all day...2.5 hours (and many stops) later I was back in lviv...
Dinner was a random cafe on the way back to my hotel...I was tired and it was dark and cold, I didn't want slow or fancy...
The next morning I went for a walk before breakfast...(when I checked in I chose which breakfast I wanted, and when I wanted it served)...nothing special, jut more walking, finding streets, courtyards, and other areas new to me...

 Breakfast was good...bread, cheese, oatmeal, yogurt, juice, and tea...afterward I relaxed in my room for a bit, packed up, and checked out...the hotel let me leave my bag, I love that...
The rest of the day I spent wandering more...new neighborhoods, new cafes, etc...new churches, new streets, etc...there are heaps of hidden courtyards, i love to peek into them...unlike kyiv, there are no really tall and huge apartment buildings...i love it...i also love trying to peek behind fences, to see what is being hidden from me...in some cases it looks like ruins are being dug up, but i doubt that's what it actually is...
Eventually I went back to the hotel, picked up my bag, then went to dinner at puzata hata, a cafeteria chain...basic food, basic prices...from there I went back to the train station, then back to kyiv...
i finally visited the boyim family chapel during this visit...it's small, but absolutely beautiful...it's in the city centre, i'm not sure why i haven't visited it previously...the ceiling inside and everything else is made of wood, the carving is absolutely amazing...a photo just doesn't do it justice...
I'm sure this won't be my last visit to Lviv and around 😃...i always wonder what else the city has to offer :)

boyim family chapel ceiling...all carved from wood i think!

lithuania: vilnius

I don't know when we first talked about it, but during some conversation or another ken and I decided it would be fun to meet up in vilnius...I was excited to see my second baltic capital, the first was Riga, three years ago...
My flight was 30 minutes late arriving in vilnius, Lithuania, but Ken's flight arrived around the same time, so it didn't matter...we took a taxi to our hotel, the ride wasn't long...
We checked in, but instead of going to the room we left our bags at the front desk and went next door to get pizza...traveling makes us hungry...
When we got back to the hotel we asked a couple questions of the front desk lady, including how to say thank you in Lithuanian...it sounds like achoo...(accented to be A-choo)...how fun is that?

The next morning we enjoyed the hotel breakfast, a big buffet...I probably ate too much, but isn't that the whole point of buffets? There was a variety of food, from fresh produce to oatmeal to fried eggs, etc...
Eventually we left the hotel, and made our way down the street to the KGB museum...it used to be a KGB prison...the building in which it was located was very nondescript, which was probably the whole point...bCk in the day I'm sure everyone who lived around there knew who/what was in that building, but there is/was no visual way to know...
We paid our entry fees (only two euro each!) and collected a couple brochures...the ground/first floor had rooms on each side of the hall dedicated to various aspects of life during the years in which the KGB operated...the people who were deported and where they went, 'normal' life in Lithuania, numbers of people deported, etc...a lot of information was presented in a small area, it would've been overwhelming if I'd read everything...it's intense, and you can't help but think 'I'm so lucky I never had to live through that'...one of the rooms was set up to look like a listening station, as that happened to all sorts of regular people...during those days you could never be too sure...you had to be careful, all the time, about what you said and who you said it to...

The basement floor had cells that had been redone to look as they did in the  days of the functioning prison...you can go into the intake cell, where people were put before processing was complete...ken went in, I closed the door behind him...the door doesn't let in any light, and the space is very small; people were in there for three to four hours...it did not look like fun...ken came out after 10 seconds max...
We got to see a water cell, where a prisoner stood in waist deep water for I don't know how long...you couldn't sleep in there (obviously) and standing in cold water like that brings on hypothermia and madness after a while, especially when it's dark...we got to peer into the padded cell, into which went sane people, out of which came crazy people...the padding provided soundproofing and it was dark, leading to disorientation and craziness...'regular' cells didn't look too bad, but I'm sure they were no cakewalk...

We saw the exercise yards, they were very small...there was a boardwalk of sorts up high, so the guard (and dog) would patrol the prisoners in the yards from above...ugh...I'm glad I saw the museum, and I'm glad I never experienced it for real...
We walked back down the street in the opposite direction, toward the old city...at the end of the street we saw vilnius Cathdral...it's big, you can't miss it...we walked around to the side and found an entrance...the inside was big and airy, neither super decorated nor plain...
From there we walked into the old city...it's not a big area, filled with small streets, and smaller alleys...it's a pretty area...very picturesque...now it's totally touristy, filled with souvenir/amber shops, cafes and restaurants...

After a little bit of wandering ken was 'hangry' (hungry + angry from being hungry) so we asked a storelady where we should go for Lithuanian food...she showed us a place not too far down the street...the menu was big, both of us had plenty of options...we both ordered what I thought of as giant dumplings filled with meat and boiled...different sauces for each of us...I had soup as an appetizer, he had pickled fish...as soon as I finished the soup I realized I didn't need any more food, but it was too late to cancel by then...so I ate, I stuffed myself...
We kept walking after eating, going around more of the old city...got out Google maps a couple times to figure out where we were and where we wanted to go...we had dessert in a random cafe, and in yet another cafe a bit later I had a chai latte (steamed milk and flavoring powder...definitely not the 'right' way)...we made our way out of the old city, and at the bottom of a hill found a church...it was quite picturesque lit mostly by street light...

from there we went back to the hotel, we both fell asleep early...
In the middle of the night I woke up not feeling well at all...an hour later I raced to the bathroom (the one closest to the bed...have I mentioned we had a junior suite? Two full bathrooms, a sitting room, and a bedroom!) and threw up...eventually I crawled back in bed, and slept until 0700...then I got up and puked again...I didn't fall asleep agin even though I tried...
eventually ken woke up, we went to breakfast again...this time I didn't eat so much, the smell of meat was not a good smell...I had a banana and oatmeal, yogurt and tea...I just wanted to keep food down...
Ken asked me what I wanted to do, I knew I needed to get out and walk a bit, even though I still felt awful...so we went for a walk...

Along the river and crossed a bridge, into a church just before the Sunday morning service started...beautiful views along the river from the front portico of the church...we walked along the river for a bit, trying to stay warm...it was partly sunny and quite windy...
This led us to a street that went in front of the Cathdral, so we followed it...at the cathedral I went in and bought postcards...if been looking at prices, and the cards in the cathedral were half the price id seen anywhere else...30euro cents vs 60euro cents...not cheap!
We went through the old town again, through a few alleys we hadn't walked the day before...we wound down to the church from the night before, it looked quite similar in daylight...(brick always looks like brick)...
Back up the hill in the old town we stopped in a cafe...I decided to risk hot chocolate and ice cream...(I love dairy!!!)...it was nice to warm up too...

after the cafe, we walked back in the direction of the hotel, following a street we hadn't yet walked...we came across a flag change ceremony...very very cool...three flags: lithuania, nato, and eu...representatives from the army, air force, and navy were the flag folks...
On the way back to the hotel we stopped in a supermarket, ken wanted water and other food or the rest of the day...(he wasn't leaving when I was)...while we were in there I started feeling bad again, so I took the key and hurried back to the hotel...sure enough, everything in my stomach came up...ugh...
I took advantage of the bathtub in one of the bathrooms, and drew a hot bath...it felt great, I wish I could've soaked for longer...not long after I got out, I puked again...
I packed up, and the front desk called a taxi for me...a short ride later I was back at the airport and on my way back to kyiv...
I wish I'd had longer in Vilnius, and I wish I hadn't gotten so sick...(I ended up being sick for the next couple weeks, off and on, ugh)