Okay, to take my mind off the apartment break-in thing, let me tell you about a place called Lviv. I travel a lot, armchair and for real, and I'd never heard of Lviv until a few months ago when I was researching interesting places in Ukraine. Being very European, it sounded like a place I would really enjoy, so I was thrilled when Anya suggested it as a getaway during our ten day waiting period.
It took us about 24 hours to get to Lviv from Donetsk. Den drove us to D'nipropetrovsk (Dnip in my head) where we took an 18 hour train to Lviv. I have to admit, I kinda liked that long train ride. Yes, the train cars are old and the bathrooms are pretty gross. No, they do not offer any food or drinks other than hot tea. But if you plan in advance, it's not that bad. The four of us shared a private sleeping compartment. We stopped at the grocery store next to the train station so we had plenty of food for dinner, snacks, and breakfast. I brought the fully charged laptop so we could watch movies together. Dramamine helped me sleep through the very bumpy ride. It all worked out as well as being cooped up in a small space with two active boys for 18 hours possibly could. Isaac, who spent a lot of time pestering Anya from the top bunk, did eventually fall headfirst, taking ALL the bedding with him, but we were there to catch him so no harm done.
So, Lviv. Lviv has many layers. It's a very old city that has acted as a major trading center for different empires over the centuries. There is so much history here, so much stunning architecture, so much great food, coffee, and chocolate, so many wonderful churches that represent the mix of cultures that have passed through Lviv, so many friendly service providers (!), so many lovely, charming cobbled streets to wander. And what does it not have? The tourists. The kitsch. It's so authentic. Lviv does have some tourist traffic, but it's mostly regional from what I gather. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this place isn't swamped with foreigners, a la Prague and Krakow. Maybe it's access? The language barrier? The fact that it's Ukraine? It's certainly not prices. We saw La Boheme at the breathtakingly beautiful Opera House for about $6/person. Our apartment, although not as nice as mine here in Donetsk, had a great location right across from the Opera House and cost under $40/night. People talk about uncovering "hidden gems." Well, I just did my part. Lviv is one of my absolute favorite cities.
I won't outline every little thing we did, but here's an example of a great Lviv experience. Like in many very old cities, there is an extensive network of tunnels underground. Lviv has a great coffee legacy (and chocolate, but that's a different story). Anya found us this unique coffeehouse that incorporates some of the underground city. Antique roasting equipment makes the front entrance something of a museum. There's a nice standard coffeehouse and gift shop on this level. At the back of the store, though, we found a rack of hardhats with headlamps and a dark staircase. Someone helped us fit the hardhats and down we went into the maze. There was a series of small, dimly lit rooms. Each cozy room had a handful of tables and a small coffee bar. The room we settled in served three types of coffee: with caramel, with alcohol, or spicy. I chose spicy, which wasn't hot spicy, but cardamom-clove kind of spicy. The best apple strudel I'll ever have in my life came from the kitchen upstairs. After reveling in this oh-so-cool setting for awhile, we put our hard hats back on to see what else we could find. There was another gift shop down there, but this one had tastings of their house-made coffee liqueurs. Where else can you taste coffee liqueur while wearing a hard hat?
How did the boys do with all of this? They did really well. Keep in mind how small their world was until a few weeks ago. They didn't know that the earth was round until Anya gave them a little science lesson recently. They had no concept of distance or units of measurement. I'm not sure if they'd ever even seen a map in the orphanage. Their world awareness was next to zero. Art, architecture, history, opera...it was all new. Given all this, I'm sure the boys didn't process most of what they saw this weekend. BUT we took lots of photos, and we can refer back to their experiences there as they learn more and more about the world. Plus, as others have said, it let them see the good side of their home country. I also think this was a good warm-up for all of the newness they'll experience in America. They didn't get overwhelmed and melt down at any point this weekend, which makes me optimistic that our transition home will go relatively well.
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