Ukraine

Okay, so I sit here and I wonder how I am not super sick. Tonight is another night of debauchery and I can’t lie and say that I haven’t been encouraged by my trip-mates to write more while intoxicated, but that is usually when I have a lot to say so here I am, post-shower, laying in bed and thinking about my trip for the past two weeks. Sorry, Mom and Dad, for this exhibition of my writing/character. It’s just the circumstance and I promise it isn’t common. Since I’m already intoxicated, here goes nothing.

I haven’t written anything about Ukraine thus far and I must say that after spending a week in Belarus, I miss it. Lviv is wonderful in the sense that the US Dollar goes far and that the people are kind. Corruption on the political level is a bit of a problem and I can’t say much about my involvement other than the US and Ukrainian public relations should go towards the better due to the amount of money we put into their economy last week. The buildings were gorgeous and old, and I can say that _

*at this point, I stopped writing so I am continuing the blog at a later date and a bit less enthused.

_ I don’t remember what I was going to write, but I am going to continue that thought with a new one. We met with a lot of people in Lviv: the “governor” of the Lviv region, the head of an independent media company (Zaxidnet), the company that made the Google weather app, and more. What was most interesting what the amount of development they have been able to do, yet still their economy is pretty weak. We lived like kings and queens while we were there. One night we went to the Philharmonic. We watched a choir sing traditional Christmas songs and send New Years greetings to everyone. Let me back up a little bit. The night that we got into Ukraine, they had celebrated Christmas two days prior because they are on the Julian calendar. Christmas in Ukraine is on January 7th, so we arrived in downtown Lviv in the middle of the Christmas festival. We walked down the middle of the cobblestone roads amongst artisan shops, kids riding around on Big Wheels controlled by their parents, plays, and singing. A giant Christmas tree sat in the middle of the square and lights were strung up and down the streets. The scent of popcorn floated around from the stands and everyone seemed very happy.

Back to the Philharmonic performance: first some woman wearing traditional embroidered dress came out and spoke really dramatically at the audience. I have no idea what she was saying so I admired her white boots. The choristers were wearing dresses and traditional-looking outfits as well. They two songs that I recognized – “Silent Night” and “Carol of the Bells.” There was one woman singer that was sensational but she knew that she was good, so it was hard to get really into her songs. There was a little bit of dancing and randomly, a play where bizarre things, that seemed completely weird to me, happened, and apparently is very normal to Ukrainian culture. That is one difference between American and Ukrainian culture. It was a lot of fun though and we finished our night by going to the Rumba Bar in the old town. We entered the bar, which was hidden behind the Catholic Church down a dark alley. The bar played Latin music and served delicious hot wine.

We left the following day. I will update about Belarus soon but SPOILER ALERT: there won’t be a whole lot to say. I have about six days left in the city and tomorrow and Thursday are completely free for me. I am so excited to tell you about Lithuania. Take care.