A successful trip to Lviv, Ukraine consists of the following:
1. A vodka pub crawl to a bunch of Soviet bars
2. Outstanding service at our hostel to make up for the terrible restaurant service
3. Hitch hiking across the border (see previous post)
4. Having whip marks still on your back for a week after the trip. That's right, whip marks.
After our adventure in just getting to Ukraine, the weekend finally started. We were all very eager to make the most of it, since it started out so ominously. After going to sleep with unsatisfied stomachs on the first night, we woke up and had a really big breakfast. This was a good start to the day. We headed out on a free walking tour around Lviv's Old Town. It's a very interesting Old Town, and nice city in general. It has been under Polish rule in the past, so it definitely feels more Polish than Kiev did, for example, which is the other Ukrainian city I have visited. Lviv could use some updating, because everything is a bit worn down, but it's definitely a cool place to visit.
The Soviet Home Hostel was the top rated hostel that we could find, and was conveniently located in the middle of the Old Town. The service and staff were outstanding. They were originally completely booked, but then they emailed me to tell me we could get a private 2 room apartment, with our own kitchen and bathroom, for about the same price as the other rooms. It was perfect for all of us! And of course, we still got to sleep on bunk beds, which is the best part of hostels. Cristina decided to join us later, so she got her own room for 2 of the 3 nights...on the adventure across the border, she was on a plane back from Hong Kong, just in time to get on another plane to meet us in Ukraine (yea, she's crazy).
After the free walking tour, we took a tour underneath the Jesuit church of St. Peter and St. Paul, to learn some of the history of the city that used to exist under the church. The tour guide was an older gentleman, who seemed very bored until we arrived. The scheduled tour was another 30 minutes after our arrival, but since there was nobody else in the museum, he made a special tour for us. He was so passionate and lively, I think he was very happy to see us. He was probably the most friendly and chatty old guy I've ever seen in the service business (at least in this part of the world). I think some of the guys wanted him to talk less and more quietly, but I thought he was great. He spoke Polish, Ukrainian and Russian, but no English, so that was one downside of the tour. Igors, Julia and Irina took turns translating for me and Mark. They could have made up everything, so I don't know if I really learned anything.
Besides our group, there was one other person on the tour; a Russian girl who seemed to want to be friendly towards us. She made friendly comments (I think in Russian), but we were all in our own world and nobody really responded to her (or didn't hear her). Luckily she didn't hold a grudge, because on the last night, we ran into her on the street while looking for something to eat. All the restaurants were closed and we desperately needed something. She was with a friend and together they took us to eat at one of the few restaurants that were open at that time (otherwise we would have starved!). It was a reminder to be friendly to people, especially the solo travelers who seem to be making an effort to meet people. I am often the solo traveler, so it's a good lesson to remember.
The last time I was in Ukraine, I really enjoyed the food. The little dumplings (vareniki and pelmeni - I still don't know the difference), borscht, and a lot of foods that are similar to Polish or Russian foods were all very nice. The problem in Lviv was that most of the restaurants did not have English menus. Irina, Igors and Julia spent the first few minutes of every meal reading off the menu, taking our orders, then telling the waiters. Strange to think that at the moment Lviv is hosting matches for the Euro 2012 soccer championships, which means foreigners from all over Europe will be there...how are they all supposed to be able to get around with everything so difficult for non Russian/Ukrainian speakers?
What we learned over the weekend was that even if we could read the menu, most times we couldn't get the food we wanted anyway. Every restaurant we went to (literally every restaurant) denied at least one of us what we ordered. Either they ran out of it, or never had it in the first place. The most common phrases we heard were "we don't have that" and "we don't have that either". Maybe it would be nice of them to tell us ahead of time what they don't have, rather than wait for us to look at the menu, get our hopes up about a certain dish, only to be denied our hopes and dreams. Once Mark and I had to fight over who was going to get the last of the dish that we both wanted. There was only one left in the restaurant! And the waiters or staff were never apologetic about it. They were very matter-of-fact, as if it's a privilege to be eating in their restaurants in the first place, and we shouldn't think we could actually eat what we wanted to eat. This is another reason why I wonder if they are ready for Euro 2012. Surely the city officials can train the restaurants on how not to leave bad impressions in the customers' mouths (or no taste at all in their mouths, in some cases)? I understand that it's not the waiter's fault if they run out of food, but at least treat the customer nicely and manage their expectations a little.
In the end, we mostly just laughed about it, since it happened everywhere. Their defense is that it was a holiday weekend and there were lots of tourists. Well, spoiler alert, there will be a lot of tourists during the soccer tournament as well.
With all of the things we couldn't order, it made me think about this Seinfeld "No soup for you" bit.
Not everything service-related was bad. The guys at our hostel were actually fantastic. We asked the hostel to organize a vodka pub crawl for us, and Artem and Ivanka were happy to take us around. They called the crawl the "Stolichnaya vodka tour", but in fact, there was no Stoli served at all. In fact, I was told that they don't carry the Stoli brand at all in Lviv (or maybe in all of Ukraine). Apparently they don't worry about false advertising there. I kindly explained this to the owner of the hostel, and he humored me by saying "We did it because we know everyone knows the name 'Stoli', but I never thought about that it might mis-lead people. Maybe we'll change it." I hope they do. That's like advertising a Jay-Z concert, selling out the tickets, then Justin Bieber shows up on stage because Jay-Z couldn't get a visa. In the end, it was a lot of fun, and nobody cared about the lack of Stoli, but it just shows a difference in mindset.
We stopped at several pubs, each with a different character, but each with many shots. We had home made honey vodka with pickles in honey in one bar, clear vodka and a tomato juice chaser in a Soviet cafe with no chairs (so you hurry up at leave after your shot), pepper vodka with bread and pig fat, and vodka in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. We followed that up with a bar (inspired by Masoch himself) in which the waitresses whip your bare back (while smiling). I can't go into too much detail, but let's just say it left its "Mark" (and we went back twice). The waitresses seemed to enjoy it. And so did some other people apparently.
Another interesting bar was called Dim Legend. It is something of a fairy tale bar, with several strange themed floors, little people serving big beers (Mark secretly took pictures), and a car parked on the roof. It's right across the street from a restaurant called Roza. It's a Jewish restaurant and there are no prices on the menu. When the bill comes, they'll tell you something outrageously expensive and you negotiate the price down. If you can't come to an agreement, then they'll bring out the normal "bill" with the standard prices. It's not a cheap place, but it's not too expensive either. However, I do have a problem with their negotiating techniques. Just like the other restaurants, this place ran out of food on the menu. But here it was a bit extreme...4 of us couldn't get what we wanted (out of 7). Of course they didn't tell us before we looked at the menu, instead they told us right after we tried to order it. This is also the place where Mark and I had to arm wrestle for the last casserole (or whatever it was). Of course I let him win (since he's way older than me). The service was extremely slow, and generally they weren't very nice at all. So when it came time to negotiate the price, we had a lot of reasons for why it should be cheap. We even proposed that the meal be free because the service was so terrible. But of course, they had no concept of how customer service should be related to what a customer pays. In their mind, the two are not related. You pay for what you receive, not for what you didn't receive (and wanted), and definitely not for the service that you didn't get. Again I ask, how is this place going to be ready for Euro?
I can't say that everything in Ukraine is like this, because my experience in Kiev was generally positive. However, it was absolutely baffling the type of restaurant service we got here, and not once did anyone apologize for the service, the lack of food, or anything in between.
Even though the restaurant experience wasn't so great, the trip overall was a lot of fun. If you ever visit Lviv, just set low expectations for the service you're likely to receive. Except from Soviet Home Hostel.
We even hired one of the owners of the hostel to drive us to the border (since Alan's car was still in Poland). This time, it was my turn (with Alan) to have a try at hitch hiking across the border. We packed as much as we could into Igor's car (5 people and all the suitcases). There was baggage stacked on top of everyone so they could barely see out. We wanted to make hitch hiking as easy as possible. At first, it seemed like it wouldn't be an "adventure" at all. Alan spotted a bus full of Polish priests (if there is ever a safe group to hitch hike with, that's it), but after initially saying yes, they said no (I knew it was too good to be true). They said something about their manifest already listing every passenger and there wasn't room to add more. We found another truck driver in the gas station parking lot, but he said he was not going to cross for another 4 hours, after the border guard shift changed (that sounded really sketchy, so I won't speculate as to the reason). He was our absolute back-up because he said he'd be happy to smugg...errr...take us across.
So Alan and I started walking along the road to the border, trying to flag a car down. We passed several 18-wheelers parked on the side of the road. I think they were waiting for the next day to cross the border, possibly for some shipping rules. Guys were sleeping, eating, stretching, washing their windows, etc. Anything to keep from getting too bored there. We asked for a ride from the first truck driver in line, but when we looked closer, he had already a bunch of people in the cabin he was smugg...errr...taking across.
After about an hour of walking, waving and asking, we started getting a bit discouraged. We tried changing the way we stood, the size of our smiles (too happy looks suspicious, but too sad looks scary), facing the cars, turning away from them, looking tired, holding water (to look more like tourists rather than murderers), not holding water when that didn't work, waving a hand, waving both arms, or just holding out a thumb. Nothing seemed to work. Most people just ignored us, keeping both eyes on the road. But some cars honked, shook their heads at us, or signaled that they were not actually crossing the border, so at least we weren't getting ignored by everyone.
Finally, a car that was zipping by like a lightning bolt, slammed on the brakes when she saw us. Alan explained our situation to the nice Ukrainian lady (Luba), and she gladly waved us into the car. She was super friendly and chatty with Alan, like they had known each other for a long time. She wasn't super chatty with me, because she didn't speak English. I didn't understand most of what she said...but she APPEARED to be super friendly. She spoke a mix of Polish and Ukrainian that Alan understood a bit of, and I would guess that she could only understand some of what Alan said to her in Polish.
When we approached the line of cars waiting for the border check, there looked to be a long line. I expected to be waiting for another couple hours. But to our shock, the lady drove right around it. When Alan asked "isn't this the line?" (actually he said "queue" because he's English), the lady basically said "yep, but I don't wait in lines!". She giggled (literally), shrugged her shoulders, then said something like "we'll see what happens!" as she passed dozens of cars. I loved this lady immediately. She kept driving forward, looking for a gap to pull into. As we got very near the front, there was an opening. A car was stopped in the line with space for about 2 cars in front of it. It was packed with people, with luggage up to their eye balls. Someone was even rolling a suitcase along the road out of the window as they inched along because there was no room inside the car. I felt sorry for those packed sardines. That's when we realized...yep, it was Igor's car. The lady pulled into the line right in front of our friends. It couldn't have worked better if we had planned it that way.
Luba seemed to know everyone at the border, and she wasn't afraid to cut in line as often as she could (and pay a few dollars to do so). In the end, it helped us cross 30 minutes before Igor's car, even though they had a 90 minute head start on us. She crosses the border so often that said that she thinks she knows the cop Alan rode with into Ukraine, they guy who was transporting tires across a few days earlier! In the end, she basically saved our lives. I wish my hitch hiking story had been less pleasant and easy, and more dramatic and scary...or actually, maybe I don't.
Once we all finally got to the other side, we picked up Alan's car and headed on our way. On the way home, we stopped in another nice Polish town called Zamość. We walked around the city, ate some pizzas on the main square, and re-discovered how nice Polish service could be compared to what we experienced in Lviv (seriously!). I never thought I would look forward to Polish customer service! After the weekend in Ukraine (even though it was a lot of fun), it was good to be home.
1. A vodka pub crawl to a bunch of Soviet bars
2. Outstanding service at our hostel to make up for the terrible restaurant service
3. Hitch hiking across the border (see previous post)
4. Having whip marks still on your back for a week after the trip. That's right, whip marks.
Shots in the color of the Ukrainian flag
After our adventure in just getting to Ukraine, the weekend finally started. We were all very eager to make the most of it, since it started out so ominously. After going to sleep with unsatisfied stomachs on the first night, we woke up and had a really big breakfast. This was a good start to the day. We headed out on a free walking tour around Lviv's Old Town. It's a very interesting Old Town, and nice city in general. It has been under Polish rule in the past, so it definitely feels more Polish than Kiev did, for example, which is the other Ukrainian city I have visited. Lviv could use some updating, because everything is a bit worn down, but it's definitely a cool place to visit.
Nice sites around the walking tour
The Soviet Home Hostel was the top rated hostel that we could find, and was conveniently located in the middle of the Old Town. The service and staff were outstanding. They were originally completely booked, but then they emailed me to tell me we could get a private 2 room apartment, with our own kitchen and bathroom, for about the same price as the other rooms. It was perfect for all of us! And of course, we still got to sleep on bunk beds, which is the best part of hostels. Cristina decided to join us later, so she got her own room for 2 of the 3 nights...on the adventure across the border, she was on a plane back from Hong Kong, just in time to get on another plane to meet us in Ukraine (yea, she's crazy).
The Soviet Home Hostel has lots of Soviet memorabilia
View of the city from the main square
After the free walking tour, we took a tour underneath the Jesuit church of St. Peter and St. Paul, to learn some of the history of the city that used to exist under the church. The tour guide was an older gentleman, who seemed very bored until we arrived. The scheduled tour was another 30 minutes after our arrival, but since there was nobody else in the museum, he made a special tour for us. He was so passionate and lively, I think he was very happy to see us. He was probably the most friendly and chatty old guy I've ever seen in the service business (at least in this part of the world). I think some of the guys wanted him to talk less and more quietly, but I thought he was great. He spoke Polish, Ukrainian and Russian, but no English, so that was one downside of the tour. Igors, Julia and Irina took turns translating for me and Mark. They could have made up everything, so I don't know if I really learned anything.
Besides our group, there was one other person on the tour; a Russian girl who seemed to want to be friendly towards us. She made friendly comments (I think in Russian), but we were all in our own world and nobody really responded to her (or didn't hear her). Luckily she didn't hold a grudge, because on the last night, we ran into her on the street while looking for something to eat. All the restaurants were closed and we desperately needed something. She was with a friend and together they took us to eat at one of the few restaurants that were open at that time (otherwise we would have starved!). It was a reminder to be friendly to people, especially the solo travelers who seem to be making an effort to meet people. I am often the solo traveler, so it's a good lesson to remember.
The last time I was in Ukraine, I really enjoyed the food. The little dumplings (vareniki and pelmeni - I still don't know the difference), borscht, and a lot of foods that are similar to Polish or Russian foods were all very nice. The problem in Lviv was that most of the restaurants did not have English menus. Irina, Igors and Julia spent the first few minutes of every meal reading off the menu, taking our orders, then telling the waiters. Strange to think that at the moment Lviv is hosting matches for the Euro 2012 soccer championships, which means foreigners from all over Europe will be there...how are they all supposed to be able to get around with everything so difficult for non Russian/Ukrainian speakers?
What we learned over the weekend was that even if we could read the menu, most times we couldn't get the food we wanted anyway. Every restaurant we went to (literally every restaurant) denied at least one of us what we ordered. Either they ran out of it, or never had it in the first place. The most common phrases we heard were "we don't have that" and "we don't have that either". Maybe it would be nice of them to tell us ahead of time what they don't have, rather than wait for us to look at the menu, get our hopes up about a certain dish, only to be denied our hopes and dreams. Once Mark and I had to fight over who was going to get the last of the dish that we both wanted. There was only one left in the restaurant! And the waiters or staff were never apologetic about it. They were very matter-of-fact, as if it's a privilege to be eating in their restaurants in the first place, and we shouldn't think we could actually eat what we wanted to eat. This is another reason why I wonder if they are ready for Euro 2012. Surely the city officials can train the restaurants on how not to leave bad impressions in the customers' mouths (or no taste at all in their mouths, in some cases)? I understand that it's not the waiter's fault if they run out of food, but at least treat the customer nicely and manage their expectations a little.
In the end, we mostly just laughed about it, since it happened everywhere. Their defense is that it was a holiday weekend and there were lots of tourists. Well, spoiler alert, there will be a lot of tourists during the soccer tournament as well.
With all of the things we couldn't order, it made me think about this Seinfeld "No soup for you" bit.
Not everything service-related was bad. The guys at our hostel were actually fantastic. We asked the hostel to organize a vodka pub crawl for us, and Artem and Ivanka were happy to take us around. They called the crawl the "Stolichnaya vodka tour", but in fact, there was no Stoli served at all. In fact, I was told that they don't carry the Stoli brand at all in Lviv (or maybe in all of Ukraine). Apparently they don't worry about false advertising there. I kindly explained this to the owner of the hostel, and he humored me by saying "We did it because we know everyone knows the name 'Stoli', but I never thought about that it might mis-lead people. Maybe we'll change it." I hope they do. That's like advertising a Jay-Z concert, selling out the tickets, then Justin Bieber shows up on stage because Jay-Z couldn't get a visa. In the end, it was a lot of fun, and nobody cared about the lack of Stoli, but it just shows a difference in mindset.
Dinner during the pub crawl...we give Artem thumbs up!
We stopped at several pubs, each with a different character, but each with many shots. We had home made honey vodka with pickles in honey in one bar, clear vodka and a tomato juice chaser in a Soviet cafe with no chairs (so you hurry up at leave after your shot), pepper vodka with bread and pig fat, and vodka in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. We followed that up with a bar (inspired by Masoch himself) in which the waitresses whip your bare back (while smiling). I can't go into too much detail, but let's just say it left its "Mark" (and we went back twice). The waitresses seemed to enjoy it. And so did some other people apparently.
Cheers to tomato juice!
Getting ready to whip someone
Another interesting bar was called Dim Legend. It is something of a fairy tale bar, with several strange themed floors, little people serving big beers (Mark secretly took pictures), and a car parked on the roof. It's right across the street from a restaurant called Roza. It's a Jewish restaurant and there are no prices on the menu. When the bill comes, they'll tell you something outrageously expensive and you negotiate the price down. If you can't come to an agreement, then they'll bring out the normal "bill" with the standard prices. It's not a cheap place, but it's not too expensive either. However, I do have a problem with their negotiating techniques. Just like the other restaurants, this place ran out of food on the menu. But here it was a bit extreme...4 of us couldn't get what we wanted (out of 7). Of course they didn't tell us before we looked at the menu, instead they told us right after we tried to order it. This is also the place where Mark and I had to arm wrestle for the last casserole (or whatever it was). Of course I let him win (since he's way older than me). The service was extremely slow, and generally they weren't very nice at all. So when it came time to negotiate the price, we had a lot of reasons for why it should be cheap. We even proposed that the meal be free because the service was so terrible. But of course, they had no concept of how customer service should be related to what a customer pays. In their mind, the two are not related. You pay for what you receive, not for what you didn't receive (and wanted), and definitely not for the service that you didn't get. Again I ask, how is this place going to be ready for Euro?
If you look closely, you can see the car parked on the roof
I can't say that everything in Ukraine is like this, because my experience in Kiev was generally positive. However, it was absolutely baffling the type of restaurant service we got here, and not once did anyone apologize for the service, the lack of food, or anything in between.
Even though the restaurant experience wasn't so great, the trip overall was a lot of fun. If you ever visit Lviv, just set low expectations for the service you're likely to receive. Except from Soviet Home Hostel.
We even hired one of the owners of the hostel to drive us to the border (since Alan's car was still in Poland). This time, it was my turn (with Alan) to have a try at hitch hiking across the border. We packed as much as we could into Igor's car (5 people and all the suitcases). There was baggage stacked on top of everyone so they could barely see out. We wanted to make hitch hiking as easy as possible. At first, it seemed like it wouldn't be an "adventure" at all. Alan spotted a bus full of Polish priests (if there is ever a safe group to hitch hike with, that's it), but after initially saying yes, they said no (I knew it was too good to be true). They said something about their manifest already listing every passenger and there wasn't room to add more. We found another truck driver in the gas station parking lot, but he said he was not going to cross for another 4 hours, after the border guard shift changed (that sounded really sketchy, so I won't speculate as to the reason). He was our absolute back-up because he said he'd be happy to smugg...errr...take us across.
So Alan and I started walking along the road to the border, trying to flag a car down. We passed several 18-wheelers parked on the side of the road. I think they were waiting for the next day to cross the border, possibly for some shipping rules. Guys were sleeping, eating, stretching, washing their windows, etc. Anything to keep from getting too bored there. We asked for a ride from the first truck driver in line, but when we looked closer, he had already a bunch of people in the cabin he was smugg...errr...taking across.
After about an hour of walking, waving and asking, we started getting a bit discouraged. We tried changing the way we stood, the size of our smiles (too happy looks suspicious, but too sad looks scary), facing the cars, turning away from them, looking tired, holding water (to look more like tourists rather than murderers), not holding water when that didn't work, waving a hand, waving both arms, or just holding out a thumb. Nothing seemed to work. Most people just ignored us, keeping both eyes on the road. But some cars honked, shook their heads at us, or signaled that they were not actually crossing the border, so at least we weren't getting ignored by everyone.
Finally, a car that was zipping by like a lightning bolt, slammed on the brakes when she saw us. Alan explained our situation to the nice Ukrainian lady (Luba), and she gladly waved us into the car. She was super friendly and chatty with Alan, like they had known each other for a long time. She wasn't super chatty with me, because she didn't speak English. I didn't understand most of what she said...but she APPEARED to be super friendly. She spoke a mix of Polish and Ukrainian that Alan understood a bit of, and I would guess that she could only understand some of what Alan said to her in Polish.
Luba and Alan chatting in line at the border
When we approached the line of cars waiting for the border check, there looked to be a long line. I expected to be waiting for another couple hours. But to our shock, the lady drove right around it. When Alan asked "isn't this the line?" (actually he said "queue" because he's English), the lady basically said "yep, but I don't wait in lines!". She giggled (literally), shrugged her shoulders, then said something like "we'll see what happens!" as she passed dozens of cars. I loved this lady immediately. She kept driving forward, looking for a gap to pull into. As we got very near the front, there was an opening. A car was stopped in the line with space for about 2 cars in front of it. It was packed with people, with luggage up to their eye balls. Someone was even rolling a suitcase along the road out of the window as they inched along because there was no room inside the car. I felt sorry for those packed sardines. That's when we realized...yep, it was Igor's car. The lady pulled into the line right in front of our friends. It couldn't have worked better if we had planned it that way.
Luba seemed to know everyone at the border, and she wasn't afraid to cut in line as often as she could (and pay a few dollars to do so). In the end, it helped us cross 30 minutes before Igor's car, even though they had a 90 minute head start on us. She crosses the border so often that said that she thinks she knows the cop Alan rode with into Ukraine, they guy who was transporting tires across a few days earlier! In the end, she basically saved our lives. I wish my hitch hiking story had been less pleasant and easy, and more dramatic and scary...or actually, maybe I don't.
Once we all finally got to the other side, we picked up Alan's car and headed on our way. On the way home, we stopped in another nice Polish town called Zamość. We walked around the city, ate some pizzas on the main square, and re-discovered how nice Polish service could be compared to what we experienced in Lviv (seriously!). I never thought I would look forward to Polish customer service! After the weekend in Ukraine (even though it was a lot of fun), it was good to be home.
Zamość main square
The sun setting on another great trip!
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