Adventures in L'viv and Ivano-Frankivsk

Alec in L'viv by the Monument to the Victims of Communist Crimes

So the big thing that happened here last week was exchanges in Ivano-Frankivsk with the zone leaders. Basically that means we spent about 20 hours on the trains going back and forth. It's a ~6 hour ride from Uzhhorod to L'viv and then ~3.5 hours from L'viv to Ivano. It's kind of unfortunate, but it's definitely much better than the alternative -- a 10-hour bus ride through Ukrainian mountain roads. Most of the time we get pretty nice private coupes with beds and stuff. 

Unfortnately, for the first 6-hour train ride to L'viv we did not have such nice tickets. It's called an elektrishka, and it's basically like sitting on a city bus for 6 hours, with a little bit less leg room. So that was fun. The real fun part was that our train left at 5:15 in the morning. however, something went wrong with setting our alarms, and we woke up at 4:55. The train station is about an hour walk from our apartment, so we were gonna call a taxi anyway, but those usually take 15-20 minutes to show up. So, we woke up and immediately called a taxi, grabbed our bags, and ran outside to wait. It was some kind of miracle, but the taxi showed up within five minutes, and was more than happy to drive fast when I told him we were a little late. We made it to the train station in about 5 minutes and were seated on the train with 5 minutes to spare. Defnitely a lot of luck involved there.

In front of the art museum in L'viv

When we got to L'viv, we had about 5 hours to wait until our next train, so we decided to stop by the mission office to get a package for my companion. Unfortunatly, neither of us know L'viv very well, but my companion seemed to think that he knew L'viv pretty well. Long story short, we ended up walking around L'viv for about 2 hours trying to find the mission office. Once we realized we didn't know where we were going, we were able to ask people and find our way. We were just already on the complete opposite side of the city by that point. I did attach a few pictures of L'viv from when I was wandering around.  The umbrellas are over the street in front of an art museum. 

The statue I'm standing next to (at top) is something about breaking free from communism. and the billboard with Uncle Sam says "America is waiting for you." It's for an apartmen complex called "America".

Billboard in L'viv advertising an apartment complex named America

Other than that, though, our travels were pretty uneventful, except for me accidentally calling two different taxis in L'viv and both of them showing up at the same time and fighting. We're going back to L'viv again tomorrow for zone conference, so hopefully things go a little bit smoother. 

 That's about all the big stuff that happened this week. Friday is the day of our big history activity. We've invited the mayor, governor, archivists, and professors, so hopefully it's at least a little bit successful and some people show up. It's at the nicest hotel in town, so hopefully that attracts a few people. 

Hope y'all have a great week!

Alec