I found a place. Big, bright and relatively clean, I now have a flat opposite a park and just 10 minutes stroll from the old town. Hugely relieved at having escaped my comrades, I caught up on my sleep and have had a couple of days to take in Lviv.
It is a city of contrasts, common in much of eastern Europe but more marked here. Lots of smart overpriced western shops with tiny prune-faced grandmothers sitting outside holding out paper cups for change or clutching small bouquets for sale.
The streets bustle with life now that people have returned to work. Faded peroxide beauties sit at the helm of dilapidated trams which rock from side to side as they groan through the streets. A mass of boxy Ladas, cool Buck Roger style buses (packed) and monumental Tonka Toy trucks that wouldn't look out of place in a WWII film make up most of the traffic. Speeding between all this are the arrogant Nouveau Riche in their powerful aerodynamic Japanese and Geman Driving Machines.
The people seem slightly less rude than they are in Poland, and that's bearing in mind that I'm not speaking Ukrainian. The girls are tightly wrapped and strikingly beautiful, but in order to impress them you would have to adapt a little to the local style... a few gold teeth and a shiny black suit will get you off to a good start. Add to that a pair of very new pointed shoes, a pair of very black wrap-around sunglasses (which should be worn at all times) and you're on to a winner. Top it off with a big black SUV with blacked out windows and you'll get laid in no time.
Having said that, Ukrainian men's attire is an improvement on their swaggering Polish counterparts with their de rigeur uniform of crew cut and baseball cap, shell suit or bad jeans, and shoes squared off and curled up at the toes. A beanie cap and bomber jacket in winter completes the Polish look.
Ukrainian women are more Russian based in their glad rags than their Polish rivals, with a liking for Versace style gauche gold embossing and accessories, impossibly high heels, tight jeans or pvc, and a steely attitude that would freeze a simmering volcano. This look takes them into a point in their fifties when they then suddenly and mysteriously shrink overnight into miniscule and shrivelled babushka's.
Word of the week: babuszka meaning old lady.
