Let me explain how time kind of works here, or at least for me. I would like to say that some of the native population here operates this way too, but I cant be 100% sure yet. I start my day between nine and ten in the morning by rolling out of bed and taking a shower. I've found a great way of cutting time out of my morning routine too. No makeup. Yes I know this seems scary on many levels, but seriously it is great. No one looks at me odd for doing it either.(Try it someday) After that I have breakfast which a German this morning joked that it was on par with a concentration camp breakfast. (I have heard so many politically incorrect jokes in the past week its not funny, well honestly a lot have been.) Its really not that bad, but its pretty much just bread with a bunch of spreads and fruit of some sort. I bought yogurt at the store and have been eating that with it. I am thinking of maybe buying oatmeal this week if they have it. So right now being done with breakfast brings the time up to about 11am. Lunch is normally at 3pm and dinner ends up at about 8pm and I go to bed close to midnight if not later.
Now lets talk about food quickly. I'll go more into details as I talk about what I've been doing. Nothing here is fresh for the most part I feel. Milk comes in a bag. Fruits and vegetables are frozen for the most part except for things that are in season like oranges, apples, bananas, root vegetables, and cabbage. Meat is frozen unless its just been killed, or has been processed into some type of loaf thing or sausage. Speaking of sausage would any one care for one made out of horse meat? I have yet to eat it, but I probably will before I leave. PETA come after me if you want. I'll fight you with one of the sticks of horse meat sausage. I am sure it will leave a big bruise.
Moving on to where I am living. I am currently living in the Kosmonaut hostel, in a four bedroom dorm. This is night seven here for me and its my fourth or fifth night in a row without roommates. Its kind of nice really.I have the bottom bunk of one of the bunk beds (same bed as last time here!). Its cozy. The bathrooms have a nice shower that has hot water, just incase you thought that Ukraine lacks hot water. If it did I would not be here. One issue with the toilets is you cant flush the paper down there. It goes in a little waste basket next to it. I hope you enjoyed that little tidbit of information. Also I am currently the only girl staying here. There have been others, but they've left. I don't mind it for the most part. I've just become one of the guys. I mean I don't wear make up so I just blend right in with them. Also when we go out at night to eat or what not I always am walking with a guy. Also its kind of that little sister like mentality some of them adopt around me. All and all I have no issues with my hostel mates.
So what have I been doing you ask? Well Wednesday I spent my day walking around the city and what not. That night I was sitting in the common room watching my hostel mates (4 Swiss people, 2 Aussies, 1 Canadian, and one guy from Hong Kong) do a vodka tasting. They ended up drinking 4 shots of vodka in about 20 minuets. It was pretty funny to watch. After this they somehow convinced me to go out with them. I think they may have called me a lame American. We ended up at the Sadomasochism bar. For those of you who were not aware Lviv was the birth place of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch who created this or what not. We went into the bar and there were chains and such on the walls and we all thought Oh this isn't too bad. We sat down and ordered drinks (I got tea. Lame to some but there needed to be at least one sober person in the group.) and all of a sudden we just heard *whack*. Someone was getting whipped in the next room. That's right, you heard me correctly. The woman then came into our room and some guys volunteered with gusto and took their shirts off and others were somewhat forced. It was extremely odd and yet I couldn't look away like with a car crash.
We met a Ukrainian couple when we were at this bar and asked us to go to dinner with them. We were lead to a place that looked like a regular apartment building in Old Town and when we knocked on a door this old man in his bathrobe answered the door. The couple talked with him for a bit and then we were lead into his apartment and through a door which opened up into the beautiful restaurant. It blew all of our minds. It was probably one of the nicer places I have ever been in. The theme seemed to have been the Free Masons. Most of our group ordered dumplings that came out covered in a blue green fire. It was amazing. I skipped getting anything because I had already had dinner. Now I must tell you about the toilet. You walk in and there is just a thrown there with huge lit pillar candles next to it. Intense classical music is playing loudly. I have never felt like I was more on a mission when I went to the bathroom in my life. I really should have taken a picture but this was a classy place. I mean come on there was a thrown for the toilet! After everyone finished eating it was time for me to go home and sleep.
The next day the two Aussies, Dan and Luke, and I went shooting. This was my first time shooting a gun. It was kind of scary, but the fact that I had gotten teased about not being a true American for never having fired a gun was enough to make me do it. I did ok shooting. It safe to say no one is going to be recruiting me to be a sniper anytime soon. We had a photo session after and I felt really silly. We joked that we were like those terrorist that you see in the news with all their guns. Bad joke again I know.
Later that night we were sitting around wondering what to do for dinner and we decided to go to this place that someone had suggested to our Ukrainian friend who was staying at the hostel. Five of us trudged off to this little restaurant that was nestled below a church. It was beautiful and would definitely be a great "first date" place. We worked our way through the menu making sure that we picked correctly. I ended up ordering a beer, borsch, and some kind of pork with a rice type thing. The beer was on the ok side. In no way in Ukraine known for it. The borsch on the other hand was amazing and I am not a big beat fan. It had chunks of potatoes and meat in it as well. When my meal came it was little chunks of pork with a rice, kuskus type grain that had some pumpkin flavoring. One of the best things about it was that they aren't afraid of fat here. They leave it on, which really enhanced the flavor. Other things that were eaten by my friends was rabbit in a sour cream sauce and wild boar ribs. Those both looked amazing and I going back to have both for sure. All of the glass that was used in the restaurant was also hand made in the church above I believe. They have a shop for that as well and you can bet I am going back to look and hopefully buy something. Did I mention that my meal was only $10 American. Complete score.
It however is super late right now so I am going to go to bed and hopefully I will pick up where I left off tomorrow, but its also suppose to be 45ºF here tomorrow so I might try to find a beach or something and go sunbathing. Only kidding.
No comments:
Post a Comment