Lovin Lviv

We got dumped off teh bus at the train station, which, because of my Lonely Planerts very vague Ukraine section with no map for the second biggest city, meant we didnt have a fucking clue where we were. after getting a bus vaguly into town cos the tram we were told to get was terminated cos there had been a hurricane or summit. after relying on my mental map we evntually got lost, through a combination of russian and wrong street names, 3 people and about an hour later we arrived at our hostel which was actually quite nice and cheap. the woman tried to charge us more than hostel world had said but we argued and she put up no resistance, so we got our room for 4 quid a night, the cheapest since mongolia. we were in a rush cos the Germany Turkey match was coming to end so we just went straight to the first pub we saw got to pints and watched the last 2o minutes. much to our dismay turkey were 2-1 down, almost immediately though, they equalised, yaz we think, extra time, until Phillip Lahm wenta bit mental and scored an amazing goal in the 94th minute. when the game finished we went down stairs and as soon as the barman told me the 2 beers cost a quid in total i realised i loved thios place, there's nothing better than good, cheap alchohol to take awaz all the stress. when we got back the hostel owner and his friends invited us to drink with them. a few funnz broken russian stories, vodka shots and glasses of moldovan wine later we decided to go to the club. we had a chocie of 3, Millenium which would be expensive, Picasso which was quite far away and metro which was close, cheap and full, easy choice. Well saying that we had actually been persuaded to go to Picasso but Metro was on the way so we went there instead. we got in and the main dancefloor was packed, unfortuanately they were playing cheesy russian dance music. we had a few beers (Staropramen were a quid each) and then had a look around. we checked out the hiphop and the house rooms and then jsut cut our losses and went back to the main stage, the next 3 hours or so are very hazy so i'll keep it simple: I met some young ukrainians with union jack t-shirts cos their nicknames are 'Hooligan', i danced with some girl who told me no, but later while i was talking to pierre said good dancing in my ear, in russian konyeshna. pierre left, i'm not sure when but it was because his feet were 'cunted' basically i went over to the table where she was sitting and did another russian chirps and got off with her, when we left the club though, with her mate i was like, ok back to yours? (she was actually well on it) but then she goes and shows me her ingagement ring - 'im getting married in 3 months', 'err... cool' we shared a cab cos apparently we lived on the same road, or at least i thought i did. in the cab she was stroking my leg, which in my opinion was a brutal form of torture. the cab pulled up at 'my address' but what actually happened was teh hostel is on schevchenko avenue not schevchenko street. i was like 'i will sleep on the floor i just need to sleep, please, actually on the floor' after telling me that she actually lived with her fiance, her friend sent me home and even payed for my cab, i had 50p on me, the cab was 2 quid....

Next day i woke up with up at about 2 in teh afternoon to the hostel girl asking me why i was still in bed, we decided to go into town and ask about train times at the tourism office, get some food and pierre to get a haircut. the tourism lady was dumb and wrong saying we could get a train to moldova in 3 hours (would actually take 17) which perked us up for a about an hour or so until we checked online. something usful she did tell us was a barber shop where pierre could get his Andre Arshavin hair cut off it ended up costing about a quid. while he was having his haircut i went and had a look around the nearby market, where a few stalls were closing up, why so early i thought, me not even having lunch yet, oh wait its 5.30. atre Pierres haircut we went to a fancy yet popular pizzeria where u chose ur own toppings, pizza and a drink cost about 2 pounds, by now we were actually realising how fucking cheap lviv actually actually was, pizza was delicious and all. After that we went to the Internet Cafe to find the real train times we found that the train to Moldova was an overnight, so, with our plan to have as many consecutive nights out as possible in our 'dash to EXIT' we decided to head further into ukraine and skip moldova completely as well as romania and end up getting a ferry to varna from odessa. Later that evening we found a seat in one of the cool outdoor shisha bars we saw the night before on teh mainstreet to watch the football, spain russia, if i remember correctly, everyone was supporting Spain, eastern Ukraine, are very patriotic and therefore anti russian, Spain won 3-0, absolutely demolishing the russians, Arshavin was quiet all match, partly due to the deity that is Marcos Senna. during teh game we got some shisha the man was like 'what flavour' peach please 'and what would u like inside?' err peach? 'no, inside, wine cognac, milk?' err... well aparently milk was the best bet and we got it cos it was cheapest as well, but apparently it acts as a filter, what resulted was a shisha pipe that tasted like peach yogurt, honestly one of teh buffest things ever. we also got chatting to a guy called Vladimir who studied english at Uni and has since kept in touch, he was a cool guy. when we got back to the hostel tank up before the club we met a scouse bloke who had just arrived. his mates were asleep and he was in his pants but a few minutes (beers) later he was persuaded to come to Metro with us. On this night in Metro the tallent wasnt up to its best, they were all very young so we went on a mission to get drunk. there were some pretty hot strippers on the podium so thats where all the young boys were cameras out, recording. this night fades away in my memory i did end up getting off with some girl she gave me her number but i didnt remember her name so i saved something ridiculous in my phone, just check it now.......Juv.... (i tell u 2 weeks on when i'm actually writng this that cracks me up soooo much).

i stayed too late at the club and drank too much especially as i had to be up at 8 the next morning when the alarm went off i seariously have never felt so bad, Pierre can vouch for it, he saw the state i was in, that morning is a bit of a blur but i still managed to get the train to Kiev.

Lviv was seariously up there with St Pete and Beijing as one of the favourite places i went to. If we wern't in some mad crazy rush, i could have easily stayed there another 3 days or so, would have done well for my finances too...