Our Schedules, Our Woes, Books, and Eurovision

We only have 12 more days until the end of term. And one of those days is reserved for parent meetings, of which, so far, neither Bhadri nor I have any scheduled. Oh, and I just remembered we have a monday in June that's a state holiday--Corpus Christi. Not just a city in Texas, apparently.

So I think I've been grinding my teeth at night. I wake up each morning with sore jaws and a headache, so process of deduction. Unless I'm waking up in the middle of the night and going out into the hallway to gnaw on the exposed pipes by the telephone. I've been totally exhausted lately. The black circles, no appetite, whole-head headaches. It's not too fun. But on the flip side, we do only have a few more weeks before vacation. It's been such a stressful time with the wedding planning, summer school organization (and Booster accomodation during it), new school getting for next year, moving to Wroclaw and when?!??, and alternative extras that we want to do but have no idea when we'll have time. Our students and friends, the Chyrowicz family, have invited us to spend 2 weeks with them in the middle of a primeival forrest in north-eastern Poland (near Belarus). We'd be hanging out in a forrester's cottage, no where near civilization, and it sounds so beautiful to me. There's a Yiddish culture and language seminar going on near Warsaw for 3 weeks, as well (starts the day after we'd leave from the forrest). It's an intensive language course with native speakers and with day trips to old, important cities/towns/places. It sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity--how amazing would it be to study Yiddish in Poland? It's affordable, I think, but the only thing is: how can I voluntarily spend 3 weeks away from my new husband and dog-son? Wow, it's crazy to write that. Not dog-son, but new husband. AH! Excitingness! Anyways, Bhads thinks I should do it because it could be such an incredible experience...but we'll just have to see. Also, we are gonna need a honeymoon at some point. We pushed it back so we could do 2 weeks at an English language summer school up on an island in the Baltic Sea (off the coast of Gdansk). The money and experience would be good to have.

So, after that we'd have to move very quickly (and eh hem, find an apartment) to Wroclaw because our lease runs out here in early August. Then we'd meet the Chryowiczs in the forrest. Then I'd go to the Yiddish camp. Then we'd go on honeymoon to Hungary. Then we'd have a week or so before we start work in Wroclaw. I'm not sure if it's all do-able, and something will have to give.

It's gotten pretty hot here in the last few weeks. It's been in the 90s for you Fahrenheit lovers, and quite humid. It's really gorgeous when you're in the shade and the breeze is blowing, but if the sun is beating down, oh the sweat will be a pourin'. Air conditioning is a luxury that Poland doesn't value. We don't have any AC here at the school, so if you're in a classroom on the sunny side, prepare yourself for sweaty shirts and foreheads. Plus teenage boys here tend to stank (yes, I said: stank) even without the heat, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Hah!

What else about life. Bhads has a major knot in his back. He made me stand on him this morning. I hate doing that. But he's pretty stressed too.


Booster is grand. He's been super cuddly lately, crawling up into my arms in the middle of the night and plopping down on my reading material. He's loving the sunny days from his cozy spot in the window, but we're realizing that he can't take the long walks we're used to. He gave Bhads a real look of: this is NOT cool, the other day. Bhads said it was such a human look.

I think it's time for a Red Bull. Or Rrrrraid Bool as the locals say.

...I'm spacing out...

Oh, another book recommendation. Our friend Piers loaned us a book. I'm sure you've probably all seen the movie or at least heard of the title. Everything is Illuminated. Well, I have to say, our buddy Kara was reading it before we left Austin and she was raving about how great it was. I was like, yeeeah, but the movie was so awesome I don't know how it could get any better. But, let me tell you, it's an incredible read. It's so dynamic and the characters are hilarious and so genuinely human and I'm obsessed with it now. I can't read it enough. The details are so quirky and super-funny (I'm positive I've missed so many subtle and clever parts. I'll have to read it again and try to catch them), and the storyline is so beautifully told. I just can't say enough good about it. It's actually pretty different from the movie, of course, but I guess I didn't expect it. If you need a good summer book, I recommend it.*

This weekend we went over to Piers' apartment for a Eurovision Song Contest party. I'd never really heard about this phenomena until this year, when all the UK teachers were raving about it. For some reason I can't get the photo to copy, but please click this link (it's the winner crankin' it out for the Serbian hometeam): http://www.eurovision.tv/images/stories/galleries/First_rehearsal_of_Serbia/target2.html

Also, please (for humor's sake) click on this link for my own vote, Ukraine: http://www.eurovision.tv/images/stories/galleries/Germany_and_Ukraine/target3.html

*The author apologizes for the constant stream of book recommendations, but she wants to make it clear that she really likes these books and really likes her friends and family and really wants them to like these--and other--books as well.

Greeetings From Poland

I've been making time for a little graphic design lately. I even got a small freelance assignment on the side which was nice. Another teacher is starting up a translating business and asked me to make a poster. It was fun.

And that got me on a kick. So I've been doing much less reading lately. I stayed up a few nights ago until 3 in the morning playing with this cow. I've been tired since, but had a fun time with it. I really just wanted to dispell the old myth that cows in Poland are different from those elsewhere around the world. Wherever I go I keep hearing about this. And it's just plain wrong! This illustration is to scale and is both scientifically, factually and anatomically correct for its age. No bones necessary. Fact. The heat produced by the digestion keeps the cow inflated.

This is Booster

Rare Photos of the Bs

Because one of us is usually behind the camera, we don't have many pictures of the two of us together. Our friend, Grant, took some photos of us while we were out hiking in the mountains a couple of weeks ago. We liked seeing our faces face-to-face, and we hope you do too.

Wroclaw, Wroclaw Here We Come...

I'm happy to report that we've been offered jobs in Wroclaw, Poland, next year. Yippee! We visited the city a few months ago and found it lovely with lots of coffee, fresh poppy seed pastries, culture, little copper elves scattered and hidden across the city, and a gorgeously gorgeous old town. It'll be fun to be in a beautiful city again.

We've decided that it's not that terrible living in Katowice. It's very nice and green and lively with all of the outside cafes and flowers that've popped up all over town. But something about Katowice feels shallow. There's not the history here that's in other towns. Most of the restaurants and bars feel like they're trying to be Western/American, but that's not too charming.

It should be a new, Polish adventure. We're pretty excited!

Baron Rogacizna's Dinner

This is a play that my 9 year old students wrote yesterday. I'm really proud--they did it all by themselves! So I present: Baron Rogacizna's Dinner

Characters:
The monkey: Baron Rogacizna
The Bananas: Molly, Chiquita, & Zdzislaw
The Parrot: Johan
The man: Jaszu

[The story opens with three bananas, Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw, hanging in a shop window. A man enters, looking to buy bananas...]
Jaszu: Three bananas, please.
Molly and Zdzislaw: Oh, no!
[The man buys the three bananas, Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw.]
Chiquita: I hear a truck...
Zdzislaw: I don't like trucks.
[The man takes the bananas and puts them into his truck. The don't know where they are, but a minute later the truck door opens. They are at the zoo, and a big monkey named Baron Rogacizna is waiting for his bananas.]
Molly: Oh no, it's Baron Rogacizna and he wants to eat us!
Chiquita and Zdzislaw: Please, help us!
Baron Rogacizna: Raaaaarrrrr, I'm very hungry, and I want to eat a banana!
Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw: Help! Help us!
[Baron Rogacizna, is about to eat the bananas. But the bananas see a parrot flying towards them.]
Zdzislaw: Oh, it's a super parrot. He wants to save us!
Chiquita: It's Super Johan!
Johan: I want to help you!
Baron Rogacizna: They're my bananas, Johan, they're MY bananas!
[Johan the Parrot flies down and takes the bananas. Molly and Zdzislaw sit on his back, and Chiquita sits on his head.]
Johan: Thank you, Baron Rogacizna.
Baron Rogacizna: Rarrrrrrrrr, they're MY bananas!
Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw: Thank you, Johan.
Johan: You're welcome.
Johan, Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw sing: We are the Champions, we are the champions...

Beskid Business

May 1st and 3rd are state holidays in Poland. This year they fell on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, so most people got a whole week of vacation (or at least 3 days like we did). The first of May was the Communist Labor Day (a day off work to honor the proletariat), and although the city streets don't host the parades and festivals they used to during the Communist days, people still get the day off. May 3rd is the day the Polish constitution was inacted. The two holidays aren't really connected, as far as I can tell. Polish history has been so tumultous, and it's consolation prize is lots of days off work. Not too shabby.

During our vacation, we went hiking in the Beskidy--the mountain range south of Katowice, on the Slovakian border. Bhads, Booster, and our friend Grant, joined me on the longest and hardest hike of my life.

31 kilometers (about 20 miles) stretched over two days. I'm pretty proud we did it. I'd never tried or succeeded in doing anything that hardcore, so I was fairly skeptical that I could get over that next ridge in one piece. Some of the mountains were very steep, but I did my best to let all my anxieties go. Even after the hostel at Mlada Hora turned us away two hours before sunset (they were booked up, but generally turning people away at all is frowned upon), I still knew we had nothing to worry about. They'd made us tea to keep us going; it was good tea, too, so that was kind of them. But images of shelters in ditches, covered with evergreen braches for warmth, flickered through my thoughts (and funnily enough, through Bhad's thoughts at the same time!); I knew we'd survive the night whether we found beds in Soblowka, the village at the bottom of our mountain, or if we had to rig something up in the hills. I was all just a part of the adventure.

The hike was really wonderful. Day One we ended up in Soblowka, after taking the emergency detour down the mountain in search of warm beds and a cold beer. Of course, everything always, always works out. Always. We arrived in Soblowka, and were a bit stunned. On the map the community looked like a veritable town, but when the trail turned into cement and opened up our view, there was no doubt: Soblowka is a village. Maybe 25 houses scattered across the side of the hill, smoke billowing from chimneys, horses neighing, cats scurrying. We checked out the map at the trail's end and saw no hostels or guesthouses or hotels on it. We started to walk down the main drag, and found ourselves knocking on the door of a short, plump woman's house. A sign read: Noclegi, Zapraszamy! and a telephone number. Having no clue what "noclegi" meant, I knew "zapraszamy" was "we welcome you." So our chances of finding a place were getting better. I didn't catch her name (something like Babcia?) but her sparkling eyes and pink circles of cheeks left an impression. She asked where we were from, we answered, and she responded by clutching her chest and exclaiming with gusto, "America! Ah, America." We were in.

Unfortunately, she said, she didn't have any rooms available. Holiday week. But she would happily call her friends and they come and give us a lift to their place for the night. "Jedno noc, tak? Tylko jedno noc?" She wanted to make sure we needed to stay only for a night.

Accomodation was being arranged and priorities had shifted to, well, beer. What's a hike in the mountains if you can't have a local pint at the end of the day? So, knowing that the village shop was open for just another 10 minutes, Bhad jetted down the street in search of Tyskie.

A few minutes later, Grant and I, standing on the old wooden porch deciphering a guest's map, saw Bhadri sprinting down the road, beer in tow. He kept running and running, passing the driveway to the house. Grant yelled to him with a hey-you-idiot-we're-right-here tone, but Bhads screamed back--still running--"Shut up!" As he jogged up the houses' back entrance, Bhad swore something in between breaths about a crazy drunk man, shaking his head and saying "what the hell?" He told us that the store was being "guarded" by ten liquered-up, mountain men. One of them took it as duty to chase Bhads down, stumbling after him, clenching his fists and yelling after him in a gruff Polish tongue. Bhad successfull alluded him, the reason for running past the house, and avoided a mountain brawl.

We waited for our accomodation beholders to arrive, and the sweet woman with the pink cheeks served us a most delicious three course meal. Veggie soup with noodles, kompote, meat cutlets with mashed potatoes, gravy, and bigos, and a majestic apple dessert. Confession: I ate the meat. The whole meal had meat in it, bar soup and dessert, and I was starving. Yes, I'm making excuses because I feel slightly guilty, but to be honest I wouldn't have had it any other way. The meal was perfect and thank you, a hundred times blessed animal, for the nurishment!

The door of the basement eating area opened as we were rounding off the dessert course. Bhads face twisted confusedly as a short, balled lumberjack walked into the room, a clean-cut man with a character-filled moustache by his side.

"That's the man who chased me down the road!" Bhad whispered to me out of the side of his mouth. "What is going on?"

The moustached gentleman approached our table and extended his hand. He was the shop owner who, notified by our lovely pink cheeked host, came to apologize for the hostile encounter. Piotrek, the owner, shook our hands, said a sturdy, "Przpraszam," and let our small lumberjack take a turn. The little man shook Grant's hand, kissed mine (!), and then took Bhad's hand, placed it on his forehead and bowed, repeating "Przpraszam, przpraszam..." Standing up, bowing, standing up, bowing. He was like a scolded puppy, he seemed so sorry for his behavior, trying to make amends through his intense and sorrowful eyes. In his confusion as well as his good nature, Bhad echoed the guesture and said, "it's really not a problem..."

As it turns out, the village of Soblowka is really much smaller even than it looks. Piotrek ended up being the man who our pink cheeked host had called to put us up for the night. He waited patiently for us to finish our meal, then gave us a ride to his family's home.

A crew of smiling Poles, in varying sizes and ages, greeted us at their door. They were so cheerful and quite inquisitive. Hannia, the mom, Ola, the teenage daughter, Tomek, the boy, Marysia, the Grandma, and Bronek, the Gramps. We put our things down in our room (wow! 3 beds and a table in a real home in the mountains!), and went back downstairs to chat with the fam. As we plopped down at their kitchen table, the family gathered 'round to talk. Hannia made us hot cups of coffee and placed a tray of fresh local cheese on the table in front of us, saying, "prosze!", here you are. We pieced together a lively conversation in Polish, lots of charades and laughter to accompany. Marysia and Bronek had lived in the same village their whole lives, Tomek knew a few words of English, and Piotrek not only owned the shop in town, but was also the fire chief (or fire chef as he liked to say). Later in the night, he brought out his fireman's uniform for me to try on! The family was so incredibly kind to us, even invited us back, and we felt honored to spend a small part of our lives with them.

The next day we tried to catch the 8:50am bus to Ujstron, a bigger village down the road, but it was May 2nd--smack in the middle of the holidays--and the bus driver was probably sleeping in or eating a hearty egg and toast breakfast. Either way, after 30 minutes, it was clear that the bus wasn't coming.

We walked along the road towards Ujstron for a few kilometers, savoring the fresh pastries we'd just bought and exchanging "Good day"s with the men plowing their fields and the women hanging their clothes on the line. Grant was at the back of our single file line and had been sticking his thumb out to every car that passed. A car actually stopped for us, much to Bhad's surprise. He was at the front of the line and had never seen Grant's hitching thumb. So we hopped in the man's super clean car, and he gave us a smooth and pleasant 10 minute ride to Ujstron. From there, we started the ascent up, up, up into the mountains to the eventual oasis of Hala Boracia--a cozy and bright hostel perched on the side of a mountain. We laid out on the grass with our cold pints of Zywiec, ate oscypek cheese, read, snoozed, and giggled at Booster's man sun-soaking positions. It wasn't a tough walk from there to Wiegierska Gorka, the town where our evening train would leave from. The hike from the bottom of the trail at the edge of town to the train station a mile and a half away was a killer, though. My body sensed the end was near, so it started shutting down prematurely. It was a brilliant feeling, despite the pain: we'd just done a challenging two-day hike, Booster was still prancing, we didn't go hungry, and I couldn't've felt more alive.

Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life

My dear friend Sarah sent me a book in the mail the other day. It came across the pond highly recommended--she even sent me her copy.

Ever since the book arrived in our tiny, metal mailbox hole, I haven't been able to leave it. The book is a collection of Etty Hillesum's, a Jewish woman from Amsterdam, diary entries from 1941 through 1943. We know she will die in Auschwitz at the age of 29. And, although, she could have only chronicled her experiences and atrocities of living the Holocaust, she focused on her inner growth instead. She was only 27 when she started these writings, but each entry shows tangible psychological and spiritual growth. She reaches conclusions about life and happiness that most people might never even consider; and she expresses thoughts and feelings that, in anyone elses' words, could be too simple or too complex to seem real.

Every page is full of insights that are so clear that only after 150 pages, I feel like I'm starting to see the world with different eyes. Etty deliberately "works" on herself, in every moment, infusing love into every encounter. I can't help but think she found what she was looking for.

Some quotes:

--If you have a rich inner life, I would have said, there probably isn't all that much difference between the inside and outside of a camp.

--And sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.

--I know about the mounting human suffering. I know the persecution and oppression and despotism and the impotent fury and the terrible sadism. I know it all. And yet--at unguarded moments, when left to myself, I suddenly lie against the naked breast of life, and her arms around me are so gentle and so protective and my own heartbeat is difficult to describe: so slow and regular and so soft, almost muffled, but so constant, as if it would never stop. That is also my attitude to life, and I believe that neither war nor any other senseless human atrocity will be ever be able to change it.

--If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.

--Even if there is only one decent German, they would deserve to be protected from the barbarian rabble and for that one German's sake one should not pour out one's hatred for the entire people.

--Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that's not too awful either, but never, never give up.

A Weekend in the Mountains

This is so cool -- this past weekend, a student that Bethanie and I both teach, invited us to his cabin in the mountains. So we headed up there with his whole family. It's funny cause we teach English to four out of six people in the family. Anyways, we went on a leg crushing hike on Saturday for like 6 hours. We walked through the woods along a long ridge in the shape of a horseshoe. The views were great. In the distance we could see the Czech Republic. That night we ate Polish sausage (even Bethanie had some--she couldn't resist) from the grill and sat around the camp fire. Sunday we slept in. Enjoyed coffee in the fresh mountain air, something we're not used to living in Katowice, and then went for another 2 hour hike in a setting that looked amazingly like Switzerland before catching the train home. Pretty good.

The Train to Lviv

We scooted on through Tarnów, Debica, and Rzeszów before arriving in Przemysl, about 12 km from the Poland/Ukraine border. It was 1:15 a.m. as we shuffled to the queue of the sleeper train on the track opposite. Travelers hoping to pass from Poland into the Ukraine are required by circumstance to change trains in Przemysl. Unlike tracks in Poland and the rest of the European Union that are 4’ wide, Ukrainian trains run on tracks that are 4.5’ across for defensive purposes, i.e. to avoid being invaded by Germany, a commendable but nevertheless annoying design modification at this time of morning.

The “bouncer” we’ll call him for lack of a better word, didn’t as much welcome us to the train as intimidate us aboard. Though we were still on Polish soil we were clearly entering a place well beyond anything we had ever experienced. He spoke Ukrainian, a Slavic language like Polish and Czech. These languages share many words and I’ve been told that people from different Slavic countries can often communicate with each other. However, the little Polish I knew was proving useless now.

We boarded car two and were escorted its full length to our sleeping compartment at the far end of the corridor. To our shock and appreciation, our compartment was a two-person sleeper. In 2004 while in Italy we took a night train from Rome to Venice. Six people were crammed onto narrow bunks in a space not larger than 6’x6’ with a 7.5’ ceiling. If you’ve ever experienced something like this you know how uncomfortable it can be. If you haven’t, then take my word from it—sleeping in a closet full of strangers with sweaty feet doesn’t present the most restful seven hours.

The feel of the train was like what I would expect to find on one of those who-done-it murder mystery cruises where the passengers are part of some elaborate interactive performance and they have to find the killer before the killer finds them. The Persian rug beneath our feet was faded and tattered—some of its tassels missing. An olive curtain, intended to conceal our coats and shoes, hung from the ceiling a few inches from the light wood paneled wall opposite our bunks. I hoisted my bag up to the overhead rack, stretched for a moment, happy to no longer be weighed down by 15 kilos of clothes, and pulled back the single white lace curtain that covered the bottom half of the window. The window had no obvious opening mechanism. No school bus style thumb-operated tabs that caused the window to jerk down two inches at a time. Nothing. Not even a pull cord only to be used in emergencies.

But at this stage, emergency exit or not, all we wanted to do was sleep. Unfortunately, we had yet to go through all the check-in procedures necessary for international train travel. First the bouncer returned and, after some mental math that took a fair amount of time, collected our fares. It seemed like a high price, but as the train was already in motion and we were obviously in no position to bargain we paid him without a word. Next the Polish and Ukrainian border guards stopped in to compare our passport photos to our present tired appearances and give us the necessary stamps to proceed. The latter guard decided to use the corner of our bottom bunk as her temporary base—collecting documents from down the hall and returning to our chamber to enter the details into her laptop before departing and then returning with a new set of passports to repeat the process. Again we were in no position to make a fuss and after 20 minutes we were able to lock our door and settle in for two hours of uninterrupted rocking along with a few moments of sleep. We would wake up in Lviv.

Lviv, Ukraine

Lviv, Lwow, Lvov. It has way too many names. But whatever it's called, it's fantastic! We visited the city for 3 days over our Easter holiday last week. It's amazing that a culture so different is just a train ride away.

We'll be posting several more blogs on the city (complete w/ picture collages) in the coming days. We had so many photos and so much to write that we couldn't fit it into just one, two, or five blogs.

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv for more details in the meantime.

Fashionable Lviv

We all have an image of what Ukrainian fashion is. The skin-tight stone washed jeans with metal studs, super short mini-skirts, dramatic make-up, pleather jackets, and old women with scarves tied snuggly under their chins. The fashions of the 80s and 90s are still the fashions of today. I can now report that this is one stereotype that we found true.
I had hoped before arriving in Lviv that I could find a pair of jeans and a few t-shirt souvenirs to take back with me. I knew Molly is a fan of foreign t-shirts and Josh’s birthday is in just a few days, so we were excited to buy cheesy Cyrillic shirts for our siblings. Plus, Bhads and I have pretty much worn out our University of Vienna shirts we got on our first European adventure, and would’ve liked to replace them with one from Lviv. In short, we found two places to buy t-shirts: the university and a small souvenir shop. The university had 2 shirt designs, both only in XL, with a lion on one and the Virgin Mary on the other. They weren’t cheesy enough for us to buy or wear with confidence. The other shirts we found lived in a small shop on the Rynok Square. It was a tiny place, but the lack of things inside made the shop look enormous; you know that feeling when you get served a small piece of food on a large plate? That’s what it was. The man working the shop sat on his fold-up chair and drank his coffee, hardly seeming to notice the customers milling about his store. The shirts were displayed on the wall. The designs were bad, but not quite bad enough. Two of the shirts were in English; one saying “Vodka is Life” and the other “Merry Christmas from Lviv.” The others were variant colors of a big smiley face with a sentence of unknown Cyrillic written around it.
I can honestly say that we didn’t see anyone wearing anything with Cyrillic lettering the whole time we were there. All the shirts with text were printed in English. It doesn’t matter what they say, but English is a modern status symbol (see Bhad’s t-shirt blog below). It represents Pop Culture, wealth and prosperity; and in a country so impoverished and repressed as Ukraine I guess it’s only natural for people to strive towards that.
Besides t-shirts, we found people—especially women—wearing the most interesting things! Leather or pleather jackets in all shades of the rainbow (reminiscent of racing gear), permed hair and equally permed bangs, very tall boots with buckles and studs galore. Even a woman police officer we saw strolling across town was doing so wearing tall leather boots (see pic). I’m making an assumption here, but all of those years under Communism, where everyone was forced into anonymity and sameness, have created a black lash now against simplicity. Every purse in a shop window, every shoe, every boot, every pair of jeans are adorned with bright colors, metallics, jewels, and rivets. You just can’t find a piece of clothing that isn’t adorned with something.
On the other hand, the older generation seems to have stayed the same. This is probably similar in every culture, but it is so intriguing in Ukraine. The women, almost always, wear headscarves—usually in bright red, yellow, and blue traditional patterns. The men wear dark colored golf hats with their shirts and ties. We grew up with the image of the Ukrainian woman, round and fussy with a headscarf around her tired face. Even though some stereotypes proved true, many of the older women flashed hearty smiles and some even stopped on the sidewalk to chat with us. They would get tickled when we said we knew some Polish, and then cheerfully remind us that Lviv used to be Poland before the war. They’d say goodbye with a swish of the hand, and waddle off down the road, looking back to make sure we were doing the same.

Galicja's Eastern Capitol?

Before WW2, Lviv was the eastern capitol of the Polish region of Galicia, and at that time Galicia had the second largest Jewish population in the world. Yet, of course, those Jews are gone now. After the war, the Polish border shifted westward (Germany lost land, including Katowice and Wroclaw, as a reparation), and Lviv was left on the outskirts. Ukraine swept up the eastern Galician region and Lviv has been Ukrainian ever since.
We assumed that since Lviv was such a center for Jewish learning and culture before the war, there would be some remnants or even recreations of this in places throughout the city. Krakow has restored its Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, with numerous museums, bookstores, synagogues, cemeteries, concerts, restaurants, gift shops, and tours. And it’s bustling. But Lviv had nothing of the sort. I mean nothing. We were shocked.
We walked by one of the two synagogues in the city the first day we arrived. It was tucked away in a neighborhood close to the train station and guarded by an 8’ tall metal fence. The façade was freshly painted yellow, but dotted with bright blue paint splotches, clearly vandalized. We reached the gate and gave it a push. It was locked, so we turned to keep on back to the city. I glanced across the street, and a small elderly lady was peeking out from behind her lace curtain gesturing “Back! Back!” Confused, we looked back towards the synagogue to see an old man opening the metal gate. He peered at us and said something in Ukrainian and we rushed back towards him. “Can we see inside?” we asked in broken Polish. He smiled and responded that the synagogue was being remodeled so it was closed. After thanking him and wishing him a happy holiday, as well as mouthing thanks to the lady behind the curtain, we walked on.
A couple of days later, we found the second synagogue. We knew where it was on our map, but we couldn’t seem to find it in reality. The neighborhood was very neglected (pictured), the buildings and pavement crumbly, but it didn’t feel unsafe. Bhad plucked up the courage to ask a passer-by where the synagogue was, and he pointed us left on the next block. No wonder we missed it! The building was slung in the same disheveled tone as its neighbors, windows foggy with dust, and no clear indication that it was an important site. We approached the door and rung the doorbell (pictured along with metal plate over the place were the mezuzah used to be). No answer. So we knocked and we rang again. Of course, still no answer. A small woman with a blue hat was making her way down the sloped street towards us, calling out something in Ukrainian. She helped us understand her with gestures to her eyes and indications at the door. We exclaimed “Tak!” as she searched under her layers for the keys hanging on a long string.
She let us in, laughing and muttering things in her language, as if two tourists wanting to see her synagogue were of the oddest things that could’ve happened on a Friday morning. Waving her hands towards the main sanctuary entrance, she motioned for us to go on in while she settled her things on the table in the hall. The sanctuary was large and filled with movie-theater-style chairs, posters and pictures hung to the walls, and the ceiling seemed to climb higher as we stood there. One wall was dedicated to the Holocaust victims, and showed enlarged photos of crying children and old men with circular glasses being tormented by Nazi officers. There was also text to accompany. Our friend joined us in the sanctuary and pointed to that wall, saying “Niemcy…,” briefly commenting that it concerned Germany. We couldn’t read the Cyrillic, but we clearly understood what it meant. Another wall was covered in pictures of school kids performing plays during holidays, Hebrew classes, and other members of the community. There were old posters dedicated to the Shoah (the Holocaust), theater performances, and one that read: Mazel Tov, painted with a dancing couple (all pictured). The back wall was empty except for a few marble plaques dedicating the remodeling of the synagogue to certain members of the community and officially naming it Shalom Alechem. It was all written in Ukrainian, English, and Hebrew.
After talking, or more aptly trying to pick out keywords in Polish, with our friend, we thanked her and left. We were so lucky to have arrived at that door seconds before she appeared coming down the hill, and so appreciative to have such a caring and intimate tour.

Our Ukrainian Home

We had been warned that hotels in Lviv were pricey and, well, bad. Bhadri researched mid-range hotels and found the general price to be around 500 hrivny (100 dollars), which is outrageous for Eastern Europe. With that price you’d expect luxury coming out your ears. But the reality was that despite the high price these hotels were still dirty, uncomfortable, and not necessarily close to the city center. Also, Lviv has problems with it’s water system—hot water is delegated to different parts of the city at different times, so most of the day you will be without.
Thankfully, we had a very pleasant stay in Lviv. Bhad found a website advertising apartments for short-term rent and followed up. In case you’re ever going to Lviv and need accommodation, check their website out: http://www.inlviv.info/. They were really nice and have loads of apartments. For a one-bedroom apartment in the city center, it was 250 hrivny, and it included a king sized bed, a bathtub, satellite tv, and a full kitchen! Plus, it had it’s own water system which meant there was hot water all day. It was incredible.
The day we arrived, exhausted from an all-night train journey and culture-shocked, we had quite a time finding the place. After about 3 hours of texting the company, not texting back because our phone wouldn’t work, hunting down their signless office, and finally trekking back to the apartment to friendly Oksana and her baby girl warmly inviting us inside. The owner, Oksana, was the nicest woman and keen to chat with us a bit in English before heading out for the day. I made buddies with her 2-yr old girl, Sulamika, before she handed us the keys and took leave.
We crashed on the massive plushness of the bed and sighed. What a day. Really, what a two days. We’d been awake now for about 48 hours, with a few winks on the train between customs officials and conductors visits. It was good to feel settled.
After a luxurious bath and a few Reeses Easter eggs (provided by my dear Mom) we’d rationed, we set out into town to buy foodstuffs for dinner. This was possibly the second hardest thing we’d done all day, next to finding our apartment. There were no food stores. How is this possible? Poland has a food store, stand, or shop every 25 meters. We searched for about 45 minutes in the city center before finding an inside market, where we bought eggs, vodka, coffee, and creamer—the essentials. We took our goods home and, after a cup of coffee (100% instant, as it boasted on it’s label), whipped up a tasty dinner. Note: the eggs in the photo are real. They were florescent yellow, I kid you not.
Our stay in this apartment was delightful. We made some delicious home-cooked meals, took some soothing baths, slept more soundly than we have in months, and got to watch hours of BBC news and international soccer.

Around Lviv, Ukraine

We covered quite a bit of ground during the three days we were in Lviv. And, although we got more and more comfortable with the city, we were constantly shocked and impressed by it. Lviv was both run-down and beautiful, impoverished and enchanting, exotic and familiar.

Statues and monuments were sprinkled across the city. Most were of old, stoic men, but others were of Greek gods and goddesses, angels, the Virgin Mary, or Communist-style abstract sculptures. A 35’ Soviet-esque statue of a man whose name we have no idea (engraved at the base in Cyrillic) stood opposite the university at the entrance of a large, planned park. He was a bit intimidating, although the bright and sunny day did add an element of playfulness to his rigid features (pictured). We set up our camera on his marble base and put the timer on. That’s us in front of the university building, standing next to the other couple taking photos (pictured). St. Ed’s has nothing on Univ of Lviv—it’s like a palace…of learning. A castle for culture. An estate of knowledge. Anyways, it was pretty.

We found some very interesting gems in Lviv that seemed to be dropped straight out of the 1950’s. The market we visited, where we found good instant coffee (no, that wasn’t a typo—it was actually delicious) and florescent yellow eggs, weighed all of their bulk goods on a white scale (pictured) that was as old as the hills. And instead of typing your total up on a cash register, they used a wooden abacus (shown in the bottom left-hand corner of the market picture). They shuffled the wooden balls quicker than anyone could type—it was wonderful. The cars were another thing. Most of the cars in the city were oldies with a strong Soviet flavor. Probably from the 60’s, these cars were consistently in tiptop shape and chugged around town with attitude. We found an old Red Cross van one day, deep olive green with perfectly round headlights, parked right outside a church. We goggled for a moment and continued our walk. Quite a few of the trams seemed to be from the same period. By far the most quirky thing we found was the drink machine (pictured). We’re still not sure how it works, but there is a glass glass already loaded and you can choose between two options: one costing 25¢ and the other 10¢. We wondered: does everyone share the same glass?

The small, cobbled streets on the Rynok (the main square) were little packages of the past. Cellar coffee shops deep under the streets, soaring Orthodox churches topped with silver domes, tiny shops with Catholic bishops’ and priests’ gold embroidered silk robes displayed in the windows, the healthy-looking stray dogs laying belly-up to the sun on the green grass, the merchants selling their boxes of turnips and beets on the sidewalk, the cars zooming past pedestrians and missing a collision by inches, couples walking hand in hand, licking their ice cream cones on even the chilliest day.

The architecture on the square was amazingly well maintained and charming, similar to Krakow. But it felt very different from it’s Polish equivalent. We rarely, rarely heard English spoken and it seemed like we were the only foreigners in the city. No one gawked or got angry with us because we were tourists, it was like Lviv hadn’t had the international exposure yet to make the locals hate us. In every archway there was a courtyard, filled with laundry draped over long lines, wooden balconies sloping at a dangerous angle, and other archways, windows and doors that kaleidoscoped your view. The signs and advertisements where all in Ukrainian/Cyrillic so we couldn’t figure out where we were or what we were looking at until we peeked in a window or popped in a door. Every city block held a new mystery.