Southeastern Europe Travel Diary Part Ten

8.12. 19:51
Day 2 in Ukraine, and it started with an air alert on my app around 7 a.m. I thought I’d take it seriously, despite what my host said yesterday. I got up and went to the window first to see what’s going on outside, but it was normal early traffic. I put on my jacket and went to the bunker. On my way, I heard the alert outside as well, but it wasn’t loud enough that I would have heard it inside. I saw lights in the other apartments, but no one came out to go to the bunker. When I was there, I was the only one. No one else came. I waited 15 minutes and heard people walking and cars passing outside. It was just like the owner said. No one used a bunker. Finally. I’ve had enough and went back to the apartment. 30 minutes later, I got the notification from the app that the alert was over. Out of curiosity, I googled how the alerts are determined and couldn’t find a lot of information. One website said that whenever a Russian plane is taking off, there are alerts sent. For example, if one takes off in Belarus, the alert is sent at all the Northern districts. Doesn’t seem very accurate to me.

After breakfast, I checked out the city centre. Chernivtsi is a small town with lots of cute little places, but one day is definitely enough to explore them. I honestly liked it even more last night, when all the Christmas lights were on and people seemed to be enjoying the Christmas atmosphere. This is also the first place of my current trip that has a lot of snow. Although it’s been snowing in Chisinau, it was only a little bit and gone a few hours later. Chernivtsi looked just like Austria in winter to me. So today was the first time I used my gloves.

Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting my second and last stop in Ukraine, Lviv.

9.12. 21:12
Another day done and dusted. I would say today was my most exciting drive, at least that’s what I thought. How wrong I was. I can’t stress enough how important it is to listen to what your heart says and form your own opinion rather than believing newspapers or people. Everyone kept on telling me how unsafe Ukraine would be, and I couldn’t disagree more. But let’s start at the beginning.

I left Chernivtsi at about 10 a.m. and it was the first time I had to deal with snow and ice on my car. I had everything with me except an ice scraper. LOL. It took me about 15 minutes and a lot of creativity to see through the windshield and start my journey. It’s true that there were many road blocks (altogether about 4 on the 300 kilometres long way), but not a single car was stopped as far as I could tell. I came across many places and it was the same everywhere: People living their normal everyday life. There was absolutely no sign about a war. Many times, I even forgot that this country is currently fighting a war. It was just like any other drive. Only many roads were in a pretty bad condition, but that was the same case in other countries. For safety reasons, I had booked an accommodation, which was about 20 kilometres outside of Lviv. When I arrived, I couldn’t believe what a great place this was. The parking spot was closed with a gate, and the whole accommodation was more like a hotel than anything else. Unbelievable, that they only take 20€ per night. It was so beautiful and even had a shared kitchen, so in my opinion it was better than a hotel. The owner welcomed me very nicely and gave me so much advice on everything, I was happy to pay more than I had to. She wouldn’t accept at first, and we had a wild discussion until she gave in.

After check-in, I took the bus to the city because first of all, I had cash I needed to get rid off and second, I don’t like driving in the city centre. Plus, the bus was only 15 грн, which is less than 40 cents. And I always thought Bulgarias busses were cheap with 50 cents. The bus was something we wouldn’t call bus in Austria. It was very small, only about 20 seats, I’d say, super old and had a very bad smell. But it was bearable for the 40 minutes to the centre. The positive feeling of my arrival at the accommodation continued throughout my exploration of Lviv. Such a beautiful, loveable city, I can only recommend visiting it. Once more, there were many places with cute Christmas decorations, and people seemed to really enjoy their life.

There were busy streets, countless coffee places, and a few street musicians. Lviv is the first place I’ve seen many men in military uniforms, and I also stumbled across a booth where three soldiers were collecting money. That strongly reminded me of the fire fighters in Australia. One thing I couldn’t believe, though. was seeing a dartboard with Putin’s face on it. I’ll leave this sentence without a comment.

After my city stroll, I went back to the accommodation, prepared dinner, and met three people from Kiev. They asked me if I would visit Kiev as well, and I told them I wouldn’t, so they asked why. I said because apparently it’s not safe right now. They laughed and told me that this was wrong. They said it’s one of the safest places because it’s the capital and therefore has the best defence system of the country in place. One of them told me he lives on the 10th floor and often sees rockets flying, but none of them hit a target because the system always interecpts. They agreed that Kiev wasn’t safe a year ago, but now they feel very safe. They also told me that men are currently not allowed to leave the country. I played a round of chess with one of them, and we had a good conversation. He told me that the Ukrainian perspective is still very traditional. For example, it’s strange for them to see gay men holding hands in public. He asked me how I found that, and I told him that I couldn’t care less about what other people do. I could sense, that it was a little weird to him, so I tried to explain, that for me it’s perfectly normal and I think people should be what they want to be, do what they want to do and love who they want to love. I also told him that people’s love life doesn’t affect another person’s life whatsoever, and therefore, I do not understand the hate some people have about the LGBTQ+ community. He agreed, and hopefully, I was able to leave an impression. I also talked about war with another guy, and we both didn’t understand why people kill people, especially children. Even if you have orders as a soldier, how can you still kill someone? It blows my mind.

I just got a message from my host, asking if I’m alright and have returned from the city. That is the loveliest interaction I’ve ever had with a host. It’s such a shame that I can’t give a higher rating than 10. So far, all of the Ukrainians I met are absolutely lovely and very caring. Whether it were the guys at the border, people on the streets, fellow travellers, or my hosts. So tomorrow, for the first time, I’ll be leaving a country with a sad eye.