It's Easter in Lvov!

Monday 16 April

It's Easter in Lvov - a week later than in England.  The lady we chatted to on the train (the one with the on line clothing business who once worked in Park Street) told us this - although she said that for Catholics Easter was last week - very confusing!  Anyway, that means that today is a Bank Holiday in the Ukraine and people are out and about in families.

Despite being exhausted Reg and I both sleep badly in our lumpy 4 foot wide bed.  Reg is going to sleep in one of the lower bunk beds in the main hostel room tonight,  so that hopefully we'll both get a good night's sleep.  Ola our host arrives at 9am.  She's young (about 20), very friendly and smiley, and doesn't speak a single word of English.  Reg uses the language translation application on his smart  phone (where you speak in one language and it translates to the language of your choice) to try to communicate with Ola, but it doesn't work that efficiently. Reg tries to ask Ola to order a taxi for 5.30 am on Wednesday, when we have to catch the 6.30 am train from Lvov to Kiev.  We're not sure if she's understood or  not, though she's smiling a lot.  Whenever we see her she's on  her mobile, and who can blame her?  She must be really bored, with us as the only guests, and she can't communicate with us.

The shower's quite good, and the water's hot, so that starts the day off right.  We plan that when we get to Kiev we'll see if we can do some washing -there don't appear to be any facilities here.  Our underwear (excluding socks) is the only clothing we are changing daily!  It's boring but practical to wear clothes until they seem to have reached their "wearing" sell-by date.  I may post my winter clothes home after Tibet.  Have bought a couple more gifts which will need to be posted home when I have a few more things to send.

We venture out. It's 10.00 am and not too cold.  We spot a McCafe, which is a sort of side-cafe to McDonalds and I notice they sell croissants, which I love but Reg is not so keen on.  Still, we go in and Reg is pacified by fact that they have free wifi so he can fiddle around with his phone while we wait for our breakfast order.  We notice that all the cafes and restaurants here seem to have free wifi access.

The tea's lovely (you have to ask for Ceylon black tea here).  You get a large teapot and they'll refil it with boiling water for free. The tea is loose but in a sort of silk pouch, which drapes over the outside of the teapot.

The young girl who serves us in  the McCafe is  really friendly and speaks good English.  She's been to the USA but not to England.  She tells us that it's extremely hard to get a visa to go to England - other young people reiterate this.  One young waiter said the only way to get a visa for the UK is to go to Poland and then apply from there.

We wander around Lvov (which was part of the Soviet Union about 20 years ago). We find a phone shop and the assistant is extremely helpful in helping us choose the right sim card, even though he speaks little English. There aren't many cars about - is that because it's a Bank Holiday or are there simply not many cars in Lvov? (Note:  Many more cars the following day - so the Bank Holiday must have been the reason.)   The overall feeling is one of lots of space - a huge square and wide roads seem to dominate the centre of Lvov.  There are a couple of tarmac roads, but most are square cobblestone,  The cars make a shooshing noise as they travel over the cobbles.

We have lunch in what turns out to be quite a posh restaurant, though from the outside it's like any other, with tables outside.  We go inside because it's fairly cold.  There are 3 waiters with dicky bows. They fall over themselves to show us to a table, which is laid with a white tablecloth, loads of silver cutlery and cloth serviettes.  This is going to be expensive!  The room  is beautiful, with carvings of couples dressed in clothes of the Dickensian era, in romantic mode.  I take photos.

While we wait for our food the 3 waiters are folding serviettes.  The meal is delicious (my friend Carol, please note!!). I have pork fillet rolls, stuffed with mushrooms in a cheesy sauce, with "peasant potatoes", which turn out to be potato wedges.  Reg has pork in a mustard dressing, with chips, and salad.  For dessert I have ice cream with chocolate flakes topped with one of those paper umbrellas.  We have coffee and tea afterwards and the whole meal (including an earlier beer and fresh orange juice) comes to £17 for the 2 of us.

Reg gets told off for taking a flash photo in a church, by a lady who's praying on her knees.  Several  people are on their knees praying - mainly older people.  Perhaps it's because it's Easter, or perhaps this happens all the time, we are aware that people seem more observant of Catholic religious practices here.  In the churches, people kiss an icon at the foot of a crucifix statue or statue of the Virgin Mary.  On the glass top of this kissing area there's a white lace edged cloth.  Each person kisses the glass, then wipes their kiss away with the white cloth. Everyone uses the same white cloth to wipe where their lips have touched the glass.  Don't even think about the hygiene aspect.

Regs wants to climb a tower that has 306 steps, so we do.  I'm puffed out by time we reach the top, but there's a beautiful all-round view of central Lvov.  My knees will suffer tomorrow!

We visit the  Lvov museum.  The most interesting aspect is the attitude of the stewards.  On the first floor we are met by a dour-looking woman who silently takes our tickets and is extremely unwelcoming.  On the second floor, the steward, a woman, is all smiles, and points out where we can read about Lvov's history in English.  She is pleased to see us.

What I glean from the museum is that the Ukraine has had a difficult time establishing itself as a separate country, having been fought over many times by various countries.

For dinner we go to a modern cafe type place, but our evening is ruined by the surly young waitress.  We smile pleasantly as we order but her face is deadpan. (Perhaps she's just having a bad day).  I order pizza which comes before Reg's meal, which is chicken and chips.  Reg had ordered by pointing to the photo on the menu.  Finally when I've had to start my meal so that it won't get cold, Reg's chicken arrives without chips.  We manage to make the waitress understand and she reluctantly orders chips.

For the first time on our travels, we don't leave a tip, not because of the misunderstanding over what we'd ordered, but because it doesn't cost anything to smile.

We go home and phone Elaine using Reg's phone with the Ukrainian sim card in it.  The phone company are of course sending him lots of text messages in Ukrainian which we don't understand!

We try to watch Waterloo road on BBC I player, which Reg has managed to put on his computer.  But the intermittent "buffering" (picture stalling) makes it impossible to watch.  Oh well, we'll  have that to look forward to when we get back to the UK - Reg is recording it on "series link" at home.

Time for bed!