Lviv is considered to be the cultural and patriotic center of the Ukraine. It's rather picturesque with a large range of well preserved buildings and cobblestone streets. It's just rather small.
I got my act together slowly and walked downtown. My first stop was what I thought as the Lviv History Museum. It turned out to be a collection of royal rooms. Further down the main square I found th actual history museum. Th stairs were so creaky I thought hat they might give out on me. Also all of the doors were shut so I wasn't exactly sure where I could go in. Eventually I got it right, I just did it all a bit backwards. it didn't matter though because nothing was in English. From what I could guess there was a bit on communism, folk culter and a scary peasant house.
After the museum I grabbed lunch, actually a cheese and fruit platter, it was really good, and wrote in my journal. When I was done I went ot the internet cafe to type. Around entry number 6 the building lost power due to a storm. I hadn't saved anything and was livid. I then had to sit inside for about 45 minutes waiting for the storm to pass.
This was one violent and scary storm. It had been a slightly overcast day, but now it was pitch black. The wind howled and anyone who went outside was drenched in seconds. The thunder and lightening were so loud that they were clearly directly overhead. Then it stopped, just as quickly as it had started.
The streets were littered with downed branches, one unfortunate person had a branch land on their car. I don't know if it was due to the lightening or fallen branches, but all the trams had been stopped in place. As they don't have their own lane they were causing traffic jams everywhere. One spot of the pavement completely caved in and there were bits of tree in the hole. I guess that lightening had struck there.
I hung out at the hostel for a bit, but when it began to look like rain again I headed out. There wasn't any public transportation for me so I would have to walk. I made it just as the sky's opened up again. There were two trains headed to Kiev and I, of course, got on the wrong one. The stupid thing was that the attendant actually let me on. I only figured out that I was in the wrong place because I had the same seat as someone else. I had 9 minutes to figure out where my train was and get on it. I made it with about 3 minutes to spare.
Plascart class is basically one open carriage with divots that hold 4 beds and a table and then 2 beds running down the side of the isle. I was in a divot section. I had the top bunk which is nice because no one can sit on my bed when I want to be lying in it. Usually the people on the bottom are nice about opening up the under bed compartment and letting me sit on their bed until the provenista passes out the linens. The people I ended up with this time just gave me dirty looks and refused to let me put my bag beneath the bed I then had to attempt to get my bag on the top shelf. I can't stand on my toes very well any longer due to my dumb ass left foot, but even if I good I couldn't reach the top shelf. They just sat there and watched me try to get my bag up there. Luckily a nice man a few beds away helped me get it up there. I then sat on the bottom bed waiting for the sheets. The rudies gave me even more dirty looks. Once the sheets were passed out I made up my bed. As I was on the end of the carriage there is no ladder to get into the bed. To get up there you either need to have loads up upper body strength (I don't) be 10 feet tall (I'm not) or use the bottom beds and then the table get up. My doing this did not make those people happy. If looks could kill I would have been dead the first of the two times I had to get down to use the toilet. Luckily they didn't snore and I was able to get some sleep.
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