Lviv-The City Of My Childhood

6:10 am—“Kids, we need to get up and get dressed, we’ll be arriving in just ten minutes!”

6:20 am—“Robert, how was your night?” “Arrghhh, I wish I had ear plugs…the lady was so loud snoring all night” (Robert had to sleep in the compartment next door with two strangers).

6:30 am—It is freezing and it is early. The Watsons have arrived to Lviv, for the first time together as a family!

Fuzzy but great.

Mama and Lyena were anxiously awaiting us at the railway station. Carrying all five our suitcases down the stairs (since there are no escalators or elevators) was not fun, but we made it. First stop—our rental apartment. We decided to make it easier on everyone and stay at an apartment in the central part of my city because basically we would not fit any more in my mom’s place.

This is where we stayed. Lovely.

No, just kidding, that is a building near my school that I looked at almost every day when walking to and from school.  Lots of buildings like that all around the city.

But, here is a view from our rented apartment. It was in a rather prestigious part of the city, within walking distance to all sightseeing.

And here is a picture of the inside of our apartment. We had a living room with two pull out couches to sleep four people plus one more bedroom where Robert and I slept. Plus kitchen and bathroom of course. It was VERY spacious—the kids even played ball inside. As you can see we had to dry our clothes on the drying rack as there are no dryers in most Ukrainian homes. It wasn’t very difficult at all actually, except the need for ironing part.

We rested, cleaned up and headed to my mom’s for lunch. Kids loved Ukrainian homemade soup! Katya ate probably three bowls.

It was a freezing day! After a thirty minute walk from our apartment to my mom’s house, Mark was sooo cold since he was not moving in his stroller. Alex walked without complaining once and Katya walked separately with my mom and Lyena, like a champ.

I wanted to show our kids my school. So we bundled Mark up and took off.

Here we are. My school has about 800 students in it. It’s a very old building and actually it didn’t look like much changed. Its name is now “Prestige” instead of a “#53”, but that’s about it.

I showed everyone where I used to run sprint races and bench where I waited for my mom once crying after school worrying something happened to her (all because I didn’t get the message that she was going to be late being stuck at the airport ticket buying counter). The kids know that story, so it was so amazing to them to actually see places I talk about and realizing I am not making up my crazy stories.

Alex was ready to play! Look at that apartment building behind him. It has not changed one bit.

We didn’t spend much time there because the school was closed anyway. So we walked back home. This is the street that reminded me of so many good and bad school days.

We still had some time to spare before having to be home, so the kids entertained themselves at this NEW playground near my apartment complex. The thing is that, for twenty five years they had the same old playground equipment. It got fixed up a bit over the years, but it pretty much was the same last year as it was when I was six years old playing on it. Apparently this year they installed new equipment-nothing like playgrounds in the states, but it is a huge improvement.

I must also explain what you see in the background of the kids. Those brown doors are the entry to just one section of the apartment building. Each section has 36 apartments and 9 floors. We have two huge buildings next to each other in this area. Originally they were built to be distributed only to military personnel. So pretty much 90% of all living here were associated with the Soviet military. We started out in a ONE room (not bedroom) apartment in one of these buildings. Then when I was twelve we moved to another building and had TWO rooms, so I had my own room. When I was fourteen, I believe, we moved to the original building, but different section into a THREE room place. Basically, each apartment building has 288 apartments and my family has lived in five of them! Needless to say, my mom knows almost everyone in this neighborhood.

It was wonderful to tell kids funny stories about my childhood and show them places, such as the infamous huge puddle that my cousins and I found and decided to explore…thus getting in big trouble with my mom…forever-haha.  I told them about playgrounds we used to have and games I used to play with my friends.  In my mind, I went back to the days when really the trees seemed so much taller than me and life seemed so simple. I remembered hot summer days when we watched our dads in military uniforms walking home with their fancy attaché cases (having a car was quite a luxury). I remembered long hours of me standing with the stroller (and my sister in it), reading books that one summer before I turned twelve.  Fresh air for the baby is still mandatory for Ukrainians, so napping outside is the way it’s done:).

I also remembered how scary it was coming back home from my music school at six-seven o’clock on the evenings when the government would shut down electricity at hundreds of neighborhoods at a time.  All you could see was flickering of candles in the windows as I was trying to see if my dad was out on the balcony watching out for me (so he could come down the stairs to the main entry and walk with me up back up to our house…no elevator or light…and who knows what might happen). 
All right, enough of my nostalgic thoughts!

The highlight of the day for kids was buying my favorite berry chocolate covered ice cream from one of the kiosks. Oh, it was heavenly! No idea what sort of stuff they put it in and how bad it is for me, but it was fantastic and tasted the same as it did twenty years ago…..kids loved as much as I did.
Let’s make a pause here as I gather my thoughts and decide how to present to you the second day we spent in Lviv.