Happy days. We ate like kings at Lviv's finest last night, toasted Not Todd's birthday with big cheap steins of the local beer, passed out cold at some point I can't remember and slept like babies. A day without driving did us all the world of good. But the trip taught us today that too much stationary is not going to work...
Matt, Kass and I used to work with a road warrior machine by the name of Mike Marriner. This guy was born for life on the road, and has probably seen more of the USA than anyone I know. Mikey had a secret that kept each roadtrip successful, he often completely out of the blue announced that it was time to get out of town, move on, and it had to be done right now. He had a feeling in his bones, the winds changed on him and if he didn't high tail it very soon he was sure things were going to get nasty. None of us understood this, but there was no arguing with him.
Today I got where Mikey was coming from. We spent too much time in one spot, and we missed our exit call. Here's how our weird and wonderful final day in Lviv turned out:
First off Matt woke up with super painfull toothache and hardly talked all day, a strange occurance I don't think I've ever come across in the 26 years I've known him.
Meghan started her day with an eyefull - our strange overly friendly Polish roommate decided to change in front of her and didn't break conversation while he gave her a full frontal. "We in a hostel, people get naked all the time, but it better when the ladies do...". Que Meghan's exit.
Yesterday was a beautiful sunny summer's day, today was off and on rain (London style - Kassie's words, not mine), but this didn't seem to stop literally 50 weddings take place in the centre of town - amazing to see, but surreal to find every third person around you is wearing a white blomange.
Denis told us at 4pm that the car was ready so we excitedly headed across town, but in the cab to the garage he broke the news that it was going to cost 1,500 Ukrainian whatchamacallits, not 800. We get to the place to find Ka-put proudly sporting an incredible new head piece, and somehow manage to barter the price back down to 1,000. Lots of car signing, handshakes, promises of returning next year and we peel away victorious.
Immediately we're brought back down to earth - our first run in on the trip with the Fuzz. For the past few days we'd seen plenty of cars go down a one-way street both directions right next to our hostel. We were aiming to get out of town ASAP, and this way we could load up in front, so we went for it. 15 seconds later I'm waved down by two cops. Bollocks. Matt jumped out to get the girls (ladies always help in these situations we're told) leaving me to fend for myself. I did everything I could to look completely bewildered as the guy did everything he could to explain in Ukrainian what I'd done wrong. By the time the girls came down (who immediately started loading up the car around us totally unphased - I was so proud!) he was sat in our car drawing out a map and pictures of no entrance signs. He'd also written down a number I didn't like the look of - 600 - 50 of the Queen's English to you and me. So Kass whips out our Ace card - 'the Letter'. She'd got our good friend Dimitri to translate a couple of paragraphs about our charity fundraising trip into Russian before we left, and it worked a dream. Waving us on our way, the rozzer dejectedley told us to go back the way we came. I made sure I understood perfectly this time round.
All packed up 2 minutes later we point our noses eastwards and speed away, realising we'd hit that mark - it was time to get out of Lviv, as fast as our little 4 seater could take us (about 52mph). But the city wasn't done yet: 30km out of town in torrential rain Meghan realised she never got her bank card back from the ATM just before we left. Pull over, 20 minute call to cancel card.
Back on the road. 5 minutes go by, Police speed check - I've probably been pulled over about 7 times in my life, 2 of which have just happened in the past 2 hours. 67kmph in a 50, it came out of nowhere in the middle of a highway. Again we crack out the magic letter, it reduces our fine from 1000 (£90) to 200 and a couple of American cigarettes.
The storm never let's up and it's a heavy 8 hour drive on the worst roads yet at 40mph almost the whole way. A fitting way to finish the day!
But we got away, we're back on the road. We've adopted Mikey's thinking, and we won't be sticking around that long in one spot again unless we absolutely have to. We're 200k's from Kiev, we're on gorgeous smooth tarmac and we're going strong. I can hear the Chicken Kiev calling my name...
Matt, Kass and I used to work with a road warrior machine by the name of Mike Marriner. This guy was born for life on the road, and has probably seen more of the USA than anyone I know. Mikey had a secret that kept each roadtrip successful, he often completely out of the blue announced that it was time to get out of town, move on, and it had to be done right now. He had a feeling in his bones, the winds changed on him and if he didn't high tail it very soon he was sure things were going to get nasty. None of us understood this, but there was no arguing with him.
Today I got where Mikey was coming from. We spent too much time in one spot, and we missed our exit call. Here's how our weird and wonderful final day in Lviv turned out:
First off Matt woke up with super painfull toothache and hardly talked all day, a strange occurance I don't think I've ever come across in the 26 years I've known him.
Meghan started her day with an eyefull - our strange overly friendly Polish roommate decided to change in front of her and didn't break conversation while he gave her a full frontal. "We in a hostel, people get naked all the time, but it better when the ladies do...". Que Meghan's exit.
Yesterday was a beautiful sunny summer's day, today was off and on rain (London style - Kassie's words, not mine), but this didn't seem to stop literally 50 weddings take place in the centre of town - amazing to see, but surreal to find every third person around you is wearing a white blomange.
Denis told us at 4pm that the car was ready so we excitedly headed across town, but in the cab to the garage he broke the news that it was going to cost 1,500 Ukrainian whatchamacallits, not 800. We get to the place to find Ka-put proudly sporting an incredible new head piece, and somehow manage to barter the price back down to 1,000. Lots of car signing, handshakes, promises of returning next year and we peel away victorious.
Immediately we're brought back down to earth - our first run in on the trip with the Fuzz. For the past few days we'd seen plenty of cars go down a one-way street both directions right next to our hostel. We were aiming to get out of town ASAP, and this way we could load up in front, so we went for it. 15 seconds later I'm waved down by two cops. Bollocks. Matt jumped out to get the girls (ladies always help in these situations we're told) leaving me to fend for myself. I did everything I could to look completely bewildered as the guy did everything he could to explain in Ukrainian what I'd done wrong. By the time the girls came down (who immediately started loading up the car around us totally unphased - I was so proud!) he was sat in our car drawing out a map and pictures of no entrance signs. He'd also written down a number I didn't like the look of - 600 - 50 of the Queen's English to you and me. So Kass whips out our Ace card - 'the Letter'. She'd got our good friend Dimitri to translate a couple of paragraphs about our charity fundraising trip into Russian before we left, and it worked a dream. Waving us on our way, the rozzer dejectedley told us to go back the way we came. I made sure I understood perfectly this time round.
All packed up 2 minutes later we point our noses eastwards and speed away, realising we'd hit that mark - it was time to get out of Lviv, as fast as our little 4 seater could take us (about 52mph). But the city wasn't done yet: 30km out of town in torrential rain Meghan realised she never got her bank card back from the ATM just before we left. Pull over, 20 minute call to cancel card.
Back on the road. 5 minutes go by, Police speed check - I've probably been pulled over about 7 times in my life, 2 of which have just happened in the past 2 hours. 67kmph in a 50, it came out of nowhere in the middle of a highway. Again we crack out the magic letter, it reduces our fine from 1000 (£90) to 200 and a couple of American cigarettes.
The storm never let's up and it's a heavy 8 hour drive on the worst roads yet at 40mph almost the whole way. A fitting way to finish the day!
But we got away, we're back on the road. We've adopted Mikey's thinking, and we won't be sticking around that long in one spot again unless we absolutely have to. We're 200k's from Kiev, we're on gorgeous smooth tarmac and we're going strong. I can hear the Chicken Kiev calling my name...
Celebrating Not Todd's Birthday in Lviv
The garage that hooked us up.
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