i got here in lviv, ukraine today after a 21-hour train ride from bratislava, which i enjoyed very much despite the cheap,drunk and loud british tourists.i went back to my beloved tescosupermarkets,so that was cool too. today i got into ukraine and then rode till here, where i am staying in yet another big and anonymous soviet-style building in the outskirts of town. i had the luxury of potato pierogies (sp?) and minestrone soup thanks to the kindness of O. at whose place i am staying. walking around the city makes me feel like i am in some kind of WWII movie. i don't know what it is about it, but it just feels and looks very different from any place i've been to so far...and this city has so many churches it's not even funny...it makes italy almost look like an amateur...tomorrow i will get a better look at them...it's interesting because they have the same style but they represent many different cults: greek orthodox,protestant,ukrainian orthodox (of 2 different kinds), armenian, and even greek-catholic,a mixture of orthodox calendar and the acknowledging of the pope. this is the most nationalistic part of ukraine, so people don't seem to want to speak anything but ukrainian,even though they do understand russian...so i can't really use my basic russian, although i entered the cyrillic-written side of the world today and i've been practising my reading skills...so i try to read every single sign like a little child who just learned how to read, because it takes me a minute or two for just a simple sign...
oh,when i got to bratislava i waited till the next morning to take a shower, and when i woke up there was no water at all...so when i got here i was going to take a shower, but there is no hot water, and there is no water whatsoever between 24:00 and 6:00...i guess i will wake up for a cold shower tomorrow...