Saturday there was another trip to the American commissary for shopping. I stocked up. Saturday night I had popcorn and An A & W rootbeer and I was in heaven! I had pancakes on Sunday morning; that was a treat also. My apartment was very cold this morning. I shut the kitchen door and turned on the oven to warm up.

Yesterday the shine was able to break thru the clouds in the afternoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today we woke up to blue skies with some puff clouds. The sun is shining full force right now and it is such a huge relief to see the sun again!!!
Tonight i have been invited to dinner at a couples home. Several of us are going home with them after work. They are a very nice family and it should be a fun evening.
The exchange rate is up to 5.02 hrevna for $1.00.We are happy to see it go up. It was at 4. 64 when we got here.
I'm glad the week is ending. I am finely starting to feel better and look forward to being able to rest this weekend. On Saturday there is a trip to the American Commisary to shop and I am looking forward to American food!!

On Sunday in Lviv, we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed out for more exploring. I was really sick and Sam was feeling slightly better. Neither Barbara or Isobel were getting sick yet. We were able to leave our luggage at the hotel until three when we would take a cab to the airport. We went back to the market square to do some shopping. I bought a small glass chicken (I now have a Ukrainian chicken!!!!!!!!), a bandelero (similar to a guitar but smaller and slightly different shape), and a cup and saucer made from black clay (Very elegant in it’s simplicity). We met an Ukrainian couple who had lived in the states for several years. They were very nice. They helped us do our shopping; there is the regular price for items and then the price for Americans. They wanted to spend time with us but we were leaving soon by the time we met them. We visited another church, walked thru a beautiful park, traveled some new streets, found a restaurant with simple but very delicious food and then headed back to the hotel. We caught our cab to the airport and hung out for an hour till our plane left. There were no assigned seats for the flight so it was a free for all getting on the plane. A new slogan I have is “worse than cattle in a chute.” There we 5 guys on the plane who needed to slapped up; they were terribly unruly and drunk. Happily two of them were really in pain when the plane started landing cuz their ears wouldn’t pop. JJJJJJJ Revenge is so sweet sometimes. The taxi ride back to our apartments was terrifying but we got home safe.

On Friday evening, (very rainy) Barbara, Sam, Isobel and I left for Lviv for the weekend. We took an overnight train; this was my first train trip. It was suggested that we take first class cars. They were simple and nice. Nobody slept very well due to the way the train rocks but it was a pleasant enough trip. We arrived at 6:30 a.m. in Lviv. We took a taxi to our hotel and they locked our luggage up in their office so we didn’t have to haul that around with us. McDonalds was the only thing open so we ate there. We walked over to the Opera house to look at it and wandered around a bit waiting for a real place to eat to open. At about nine we ate at the hotel restaurant. I had potato pancakes stuffed with cheese with a side of sour cream. There were delicious!!! We walked around a bit more until a friend of Barbara’s daughter and her husband (Lillia and Anzar) met us to give us a tour. They were a wonderful couple; very intelligent and very informative about Lviv’s history. We visited several churches; briefly stopped at the market in the square. We ate at a great restaurant called the Golden Boar. The place has a very interesting history, which I can’t remember exactly but when the basement was being cleaned of ruble three golden boar statutes were found hidden in the walls. So there were several boars’ heads hanging on the walls and a complete stuffed boar hanging from the ceiling. The food was fantastic!!! We saw nearly two dozen brides as we wondered the city. They have more than one Lent and can’t get married during Lent. One had just ended so many people were getting married. What a cold rainy day to get married!!! We got in on two of the weddings as we were visiting churches. (I’ll have to write more about the churches.) Lillia helped us by tickets for the Opera. We then departed company with Lillia and her husband. We went for dessert then back to the hotel to rest before the Opera. It had rained constantly all day and we were soaked; shoes, socks (I went thru three pair) and pants. The Opera was good. We couldn’t understand it too well. They had the basics of the story printed in English in the program but was hard to follow most of the time. It was great to listen to the singing and to watch the actors.