Update: Jing and I are leaving in a few hours for an overnight train to Prague, Czech Republic. Here's what we've been up to the last few days.
The train tickets from Kiev to Poland were more expensive than we anticipated so we stopped in L'viv along the way. It took us a while to find so early in the morning (shops open later in this part of Europe) but we ended up at our hostel on one of the historic main squares not too long after breakfast. We dropped off our bags and promptly set out sightseeing across the town. First to the Opera House and through an outdoor souvenir market, then to the other side of the city past an Armenian church to the Royal Amory. Along the way we stopped for some traditional Ukrainian food: borsch, a bright pink beet soup, and vareneky, similar to Chinese dumplings. Delicious. We were pretty tired by the end of the day so we stopped at one of the many public squares and just sat and people-watched for a while. It was really entertaining.
That evening we met up with several other Peace Corps volunteers and their friends, whom Jing knew from her training or "staging". Since most of them were stationed in western Ukraine while Jing is in the east, it was a real learning experience to hear about the stark differences between the regions. For example, in eastern Ukraine people are much more likely to speak Russian and many of the public buildings have prominent Soviet symbols on display. In the west everyone insists on speaking Ukrainian, to the point that they will pretend not to understand you if you speak Russian. Things got really interesting when we finished dinner and one of the volunteers suggested we check out a "secret" (read: touristy and hilarious) underground Ukrainian nationalist bar near our hostel. When we knocked on the door, the bouncer behind it opened a tiny window and said (in Ukrainian) "Are you from Moscow??". To get in you had to reply with the passphrase "Ni! Slava Ukraina!" which translates to "No! Glory to Ukraine!". After this the guard opened the door and led us down the stairs to a labrynth of a bar where everyone was having a grand old time drinking honey beer and singing traditional Ukrainian songs. It was a great way to wrap up our time in L'viv before our early departure the next morning for Poland. Too bad the next day wasn't nearly as awesome.
Since international trains are kind of expensive, everyone at our hostel said the best way to get to Krakow is to take a bus to the Ukrainian side of the border, walk through customs, catch another bus on the Polish side, and then take a train the rest of the way to Krakow. Easy, right? False.
Getting out of Ukraine was easy enough. It was getting into Poland that almost convinced me to catch the next flight home. Between the two borders is a long, wide sidewalk bounded on both sides by a 6' fence, basically no-man's land since we w. At the end of the walkway is complete mayhem. Polish officers let small groups of people through the gate into the inspection area every half hour or so. The rest of the time you just wait in a massive crowd of very unhappy people. As soon as a guard comes out to let more people through, everyone starts pushing and shoving and yelling. It's completely barbaric. At one point Jing and I just started passing our larger luggage to the front to be passed over the gate where we could pick it up when we finally got through, because it was too big to manage in the crowd. When we finally got to the actual passport control the inspection officer made us open all our bags for him to look through. This is because smuggling alcohol and cigarettes across the border is very common since the taxes for these items in Poland are so much higher. Fortunately since we had American passports the officer did not bother with a very rigorous inspection, but the whole customs process, including the wait, still took about 3 hours. All of that... just for a stamp. On the bright side, I passed the half-way mark in my passport!
Past customs we met a group of university students who helped us find our way to the train station and buy our tickets to Krakow. We just barely caught the train with 5 minutes to spare, so we were really grateful for all their help. One of the students also sat with us on the 5-hour train ride as well and told us all about the city and what we should see and do while we were there. It was after 10pm and we were exhausted when we arrived in downtown Krakow so we just found our hostel and went straight to bed.
Pictures from L'viv have been added to the same Picasa album here. The next day (yesterday) we spent in the old city in Krakow, and today was an all-day excursion to Auschwitz and Birkenau. I haven't had time to upload those photos yet, so I'll have to send a separate email with those later on.
Cheers!
The train tickets from Kiev to Poland were more expensive than we anticipated so we stopped in L'viv along the way. It took us a while to find so early in the morning (shops open later in this part of Europe) but we ended up at our hostel on one of the historic main squares not too long after breakfast. We dropped off our bags and promptly set out sightseeing across the town. First to the Opera House and through an outdoor souvenir market, then to the other side of the city past an Armenian church to the Royal Amory. Along the way we stopped for some traditional Ukrainian food: borsch, a bright pink beet soup, and vareneky, similar to Chinese dumplings. Delicious. We were pretty tired by the end of the day so we stopped at one of the many public squares and just sat and people-watched for a while. It was really entertaining.
That evening we met up with several other Peace Corps volunteers and their friends, whom Jing knew from her training or "staging". Since most of them were stationed in western Ukraine while Jing is in the east, it was a real learning experience to hear about the stark differences between the regions. For example, in eastern Ukraine people are much more likely to speak Russian and many of the public buildings have prominent Soviet symbols on display. In the west everyone insists on speaking Ukrainian, to the point that they will pretend not to understand you if you speak Russian. Things got really interesting when we finished dinner and one of the volunteers suggested we check out a "secret" (read: touristy and hilarious) underground Ukrainian nationalist bar near our hostel. When we knocked on the door, the bouncer behind it opened a tiny window and said (in Ukrainian) "Are you from Moscow??". To get in you had to reply with the passphrase "Ni! Slava Ukraina!" which translates to "No! Glory to Ukraine!". After this the guard opened the door and led us down the stairs to a labrynth of a bar where everyone was having a grand old time drinking honey beer and singing traditional Ukrainian songs. It was a great way to wrap up our time in L'viv before our early departure the next morning for Poland. Too bad the next day wasn't nearly as awesome.
Since international trains are kind of expensive, everyone at our hostel said the best way to get to Krakow is to take a bus to the Ukrainian side of the border, walk through customs, catch another bus on the Polish side, and then take a train the rest of the way to Krakow. Easy, right? False.
Getting out of Ukraine was easy enough. It was getting into Poland that almost convinced me to catch the next flight home. Between the two borders is a long, wide sidewalk bounded on both sides by a 6' fence, basically no-man's land since we w. At the end of the walkway is complete mayhem. Polish officers let small groups of people through the gate into the inspection area every half hour or so. The rest of the time you just wait in a massive crowd of very unhappy people. As soon as a guard comes out to let more people through, everyone starts pushing and shoving and yelling. It's completely barbaric. At one point Jing and I just started passing our larger luggage to the front to be passed over the gate where we could pick it up when we finally got through, because it was too big to manage in the crowd. When we finally got to the actual passport control the inspection officer made us open all our bags for him to look through. This is because smuggling alcohol and cigarettes across the border is very common since the taxes for these items in Poland are so much higher. Fortunately since we had American passports the officer did not bother with a very rigorous inspection, but the whole customs process, including the wait, still took about 3 hours. All of that... just for a stamp. On the bright side, I passed the half-way mark in my passport!
Past customs we met a group of university students who helped us find our way to the train station and buy our tickets to Krakow. We just barely caught the train with 5 minutes to spare, so we were really grateful for all their help. One of the students also sat with us on the 5-hour train ride as well and told us all about the city and what we should see and do while we were there. It was after 10pm and we were exhausted when we arrived in downtown Krakow so we just found our hostel and went straight to bed.
Pictures from L'viv have been added to the same Picasa album here. The next day (yesterday) we spent in the old city in Krakow, and today was an all-day excursion to Auschwitz and Birkenau. I haven't had time to upload those photos yet, so I'll have to send a separate email with those later on.
Cheers!
