Lviv - day one - William Matheson's Journal

05:27 pm - Lviv - day one

And here I am in Lviv! I think it's the most beautiful city I've ever been in, next to Krakow. It's old, very old. And in terms of traffic, think of it as downtown Halifax, but somehow narrower, and ten times more conjested. It's rather funny, actually. People just do what they need to do. I saw an electric bus go off one of its power rails (there was quite a spark), but this didn't slow things down for long – the woman bus driver, who looked quite in control of the situation, casually walked to the back of the bus and applied her thick gloves and elbow grease to a lever which allowed her to yank the errant arm back into position.

In that same area, I found a restauraunt that seemed to specialize in «Canadian» cuisine. (I think my quotes are going to be cyrillic-style today, at least until I get out of OpenOffice. Sorry.) It boasted the name Toronto Cafe. Maybe I should eat there, but what I really, really want is Western-style pizza.

The drive here was awesome. We got to see a lot of hair-raising Ukrainian driving, including a construction site where the highway was reduced to one lane, which ordnairily isn't a problem except that it was located on a corner and there wasn't a flagperson. «So it's just-take-your-chances?» Yep.

Also, one should allow for more travelling time in Ukraine than in Canada, as our average speed was about 60km/h. There are plenty of places where the road is smooth enough to go faster (until you get behind a tractor or horse-drawn wagon or aging Volga), and there are even dual carriageways in places (with hilarious methods of getting on and off of them – I've only seen one grade-separated interchange outside of Kyiv so far), but the natural gas engine seemed to make so much protest the odd times we ventured above 65 that I guess we had to take it easy. It was a fun ride, and I got a lot of pictures.

Roch is leaving from here to go to Poland, so we had our goodbyes with him earlier. I hope to see him again in Duncan Cove someday. I still remember Duncan Cove – it was priceless. They sometimes don't take kindly to strangers, though. I don't think they trust people from Halifax-Dartmouth-Bedford. So be respectful, or adopt a German accent, ja?

I think Lviv needs to be described in pictures more than words. And so does Duncan Cove.

"The terrorists win." I think CounterStrike is the national passtime here, at least among teenagers with too much time on their hands.

Current Mood: contemplative