Here it is! My first big overnight trip in Ukraine!
I recently celebrated Thanksgiving at my site with a group of incredible new Ukrainian friends, who learned about the U.S. holiday from a previous volunteer, and loved the idea of it.
But, if an American holiday is an excuse to travel and see other volunteers in-country? I’m all over it.
Several of my friends and I booked an Airbnb, and spent the Thanksgiving weekend exploring the Ukrainian city of Lviv!
So, first of all, Lviv is GORGEOUS. It’s an incredibly underrated European city. Because of the city’s history and location, there’s a combination of classic, renaissance and baroque architecture.
Lviv is also an incredibly nationalist city. You won’t hear a WORD of Russian spoken here.
My bus got in really late at night, so I took an Uber straight downtown to meet my friends at Pravda Beer Theatre, the bar they had already been drinking at. I was the last to arrive. Lviv has a population of about 700,000, so it really isn’t that massive. The city center is based around Ploshcha Rynok (Market Square), which is where my friends were already out drinking.
We went to a nationalist bar called Kryivka — the entrance to which you actually have to say «Слава Україні!» (“Glory to Ukraine!”) at to enter.
Then, it was late so we walked back to our Airbnb.
The next morning, we got up early(ish) to explore downtown Lviv.
The first thing I did was grab a coffee, of course. One thing Lviv is not short on? Super hipster coffeeshops.
Then, we all set out to wander around Lviv’s city center in the daylight.
When I tell you these streets are fucking gorgeous… well, lemme just show you.
After wandering, we all kind of split up because we wanted to do different things. I needed to buy some new jeans because my pants didn’t fit anymore (ahem… mayonnaise) and wanted to see some of the things that my friends had seen the afternoon before since they all arrived before me.
After I got my new jeans, I went to the Lviv Chocolate Factory, which is this incredibly fun four-story chocolate shop.
Then, we wandered around Market Square for some photos at golden hour and sunset before heading back to our Airbnb.
We got back to our Airbnb and we all tried to nap, but we mostly ended up giggling and talking. I was sharing a room/ bed with my friend Erin, and we mostly just talked because, well, we were all deprived of native-level English conversation. And we all love each other.
After “naptime,” we started on the actual reason we were all in Lviv: Friendsgiving celebrations!
We had all originally planned on making an actual Thanksgiving dinner, but then realized it would NOT be worth it to try to pack dishes/ cook in the Airbnb/ find ingredients in Lviv/ etc. We decided we’d rather spend our time in Lviv exploring Lviv (and not cooking a turkey, 15 side dishes and eight pies) so we compromised. Chris made us a cheesecake! Chris loves baking, so he was thrilled to have an excuse to try his hand at making a traditional American cheesecake with the ingredients he could find in Ukraine.
We kind of did this backward because we saw no reason to go from the Airbnb for a nap to the city center for dinner to the Airbnb for cheesecake to the city center for drinks, so we did naps, then cheesecake, then dinner, then drinks.
We had all been craving Indian food, so we picked “Slon Bar,” an Indian restaurant nearby.
Guys, I already made this mistake once in Kyiv. I don’t know why I made it again.
On the left is what I ordered — what looked from the photo to be channa masala, or chickpea curry, plus some fried eggplant and fries. On the right is what I actually got.
Yes, it was delivered on a prison-esque metal food tray, too.
OK but FULL disclaimer! While it DEFINITELY was not what I thought I was ordering, it wasn’t BAD. We all ended up kind of swapping spices, sauces, soups and sides of rice until we all had some moderately spicy foods in front of us that — while not authentic — weren’t atrocious.
We also really enjoyed the unexpected Kama Sutra ceiling art.
After dinner… it was time for bar hopping! We started out at a wine bar where we got BOTTLE SERVICE* at a wine bar called The Room.
*It’s Ukraine, soooo bottle service is INCREDIBLY cheap. We also ordered the cheapest wine on the menu because… Peace Corps.
“It stopped being classy when we walked in.”
We enjoyed a few glasses of wine and then moved onto our next bar: The much-anticipated Gasova Lampa (Gas Lamp)!
You order your drink and the bartenders pour it from a Skittles-reminiscent ceiling-mounted mechanism. It’s served in a test tube!
If you didn’t know, the gas lamp was actually invented in Lviv. This part-bar-part-museum pays homage to that fact with its fun and quirky science-and-chemistry theme.
We had a ton of fun ordering all the different fruit flavors (even though they were all INCREDIBLY sweet) and trying them all.
They were, uh, actually pretty strong, too.
After Gasova Lampa, we had plans to go to Masoch Cafe — which is, yes, exactly what is sounds like. Masoch, machosicm.
It’s BDSM-themed bar themed after 19th century Ukrainian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch… who, yes, wrote about sadism and masochism.
Unfortunately, the line was WAY too long. It was also freezing outside! So, instead of going inside, we settled for fondling the statue of Sacher-Masoch outside the bar. Yes, really. The statue is open on one side so you can reach in and feel around for the sculpted genitalia.
No, I am absolutely not kidding.
We each took a series of hilariously awkward photos feeling up this statue, and — while I’ve saved them all for posterity — I’ll only share mine for the sake of not embarrassing and/ or pissing off my friends since they’re the only American friends I’ll have here for the next 23 months.
We called it a night. We stopped to grab some wine and a bottle of vodka, and then spent the rest of the night hanging out at our Airbnb.
I missed these people so much.
The next day, it was time to leave. We all had buses/ trains departing at different times, so we all separately meandered off.
All of us are having a pretty hard time coping with Ukraine’s winter diet, which is comprised mostly of potatoes, mayonnaise, beets and onions, so when we found a vegan health cafe, we all ran there for breakfast the next morning.
Each of us ordered, like, three entrees. Trying to compensate for our everyday lack of vegetable intake.
Then, afterward, it was time for me to leave. I headed to the train station to catch my bus, and back to Khmelnytskyi I went!
I honestly missed my friends SO much. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed being able to use slang and dialect and colloquialisms until I just easily fell back into the habit. This trip was incredible not only because Lviv is gorgeous — and I’m so excited that it’s so close to me so I can easily come back — but also because I just generally missed the hell out of these incredible people.
Anyway, now that I’m back at site, it’s time to start getting ready for my first Ukrainian Christmas! I’m unbelievably excited!
This post was originally published Jan. 23, 2021. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
