Tuesday, February 3, 2009
1:49 PM | 
Posted by
Ryś |
5 September 2007, Wednesday
It's 6:57pm (GMT+1) and soon we are going to the railway station... Where do we go? To Lviv! Couple of minutes ago we were sitting in a car and thinking what to do tonight... Bowling? neah.. Cinema? nothing nice there... Sports? how often we can do that?.. Lviv? Lviv! So we are leaving! At 9:40pm there is a train to Przemysl, then bus to Medyka, border and again bus this time straight to Lviv!
I have heard that just travelling by this train to Przemysl can be an unforgettable adventure... But our aim is Lviv and we won't give up... Oki, I must pack.. hmm what to take?... Whatever! See ya!
5 September 2007, Wednesday's evening
Just before getting to train we made tactics to take all compartment just for us. Easy to say, hard to do… but the simple thought about 8 hours of journey among people in the night convinced us quite quickly that we must do it. Fortunately Wroclaw was the starting station of that train – and took us straight to Przemysl… Of course the journey couldn’t be without surprises. The first one was quite big, old, bald, drunk… and spoke in Russian… Yep, in the minute we reminded all the stories about thieves and criminals in the trains going on East. Scared of his luggage Frycz (8 beers in bag) – who as the only one from us was speaking Russian started talking with him, somehow letting him to know that we don’t want any guests (especially drunk and with eastern accent) in our compartment… But the man seemed to not care about our words and started his story… He was going (at least he said that) from Russia to Szczecin through Legnica (aha… connection which doesn’t exist, it assured us that he’s playing with us) to buy cars and import them to Russia… (Yep…) and of course he got to wrong train (interesting that exactly to the one which was going on East)… We got also to know about his family, and thieves from Poland… and where to hide money… and we were just wondering what will be next… Finally somehow we told him that if he’s going to Szczecin (Northern West Poland) then he has to change train… With every next minute our doubts of safety journey were bigger and bigger and then suddenly train stopped in Brzeg… Man asked if there is possibility to change train and when he got positive answer, took his bag, jumped over our legs and after a while touched down at the platform… In that way we stayed alone…
But thanks to that “meeting” we found the manner what to do to avoid any other passengers… We entered the corridor and loudly started speaking (big word ;) in Russian – we knew just few simple phrases, but again Frycz gave us big show of his language possibilities ;)
It was midnight… the train was slowly passing next stations…The windowpane started washing in the rain… To fall asleep at least for few hours we tried few swallows of something to warm up…
6 September , 2007 – Thursday
After 8 hours of boring, broken by few short naps journey we came to Przemys l… The weather was awful… it just thought me to not to believe forecasts in internet … Raining, cold and windy climate of Podkarpacie pushed us quickly to the bus which took us to the border… Tourists going to Krym quickly took all place and we went to Medyka …
Crossing border from Polish side looked quite easily… just passport control, filling some documents for Ukrainians and we are on Ukraine! But before… something seemed to be a bit strange… everyone who we were passing on border was asking us who from polish soldiers is working at the border… We had to look very strange but we really didn’t know… it was our first contact with smugglers… :-)
When we finally crossed the border and drank first Obolone – which wasn’t good thing for our empty stomachs – we entered Marszruta to Lviv. Every place in that Mashina was taken, mainly by tourists… Bus was stopping few times and nowhere noone left bus… I know that it was nothing when we compare it with buses crossing Southern America, or Japanese metro… but this one was overcrowded.. :-) We came to Lviv at about 9:30 am (GMT+2). The expression of Frycz was saying it straightly – WE MUST EAT! :-) So we did.. found some bar near station, we were so hungry that even Pirozki with questionable meat tasted like in heaven :-) Bus number 66 took us to the Opera. Our breaths were taken away… and not because architecture (although it was really impressive) but this time because of the view of beautiful girls… Really there was no ugly or bad-looking girls… every next one was more and more pretty… everyone was looking and wearing very good… If I would be advising anyone where to look for girlfriend, where to find a wife… then there are two countries… Lithuania and Ukraine … People can complain that there is poverty and lack of many goods on East , but it is real source of beautiful girls. And the liar is a person who says that the most beautiful are Polish women… :-P
With good mood and more and more wet clothes we started our sight-seeing round… The Old Town looks really good but still in Lviv (the city which will be one of the hosts of Football Euro Championship) is lack of hotels, good roads, info in English and generally need much more changes than any other city in Poland… but we should be of good hope…
The rain was really strong – near Prospekt Svobod y we found a restaurant – Mandzuro … and although food there wasn’t good, beer tasted like everywhere else… then there was something what made us stay for few hours inside… Soon joined us friend of Storczyk – Oksana … We stayed there a bit and soon stopped raining. Oksana was our guide in Lviv… at least as soon as there wasn’t rain… After few hours spent together, couple of drunk beers and places visited we had to say good-bye to Oksana and go back to the border because after few hours (10pm GMT+1) we had train back to Wroclaw … Before we got in to our Marszruta we spent last Hrywny on shopping…
6 September, 2007 – Thursday’s night…
When we were leaving Lviv, there were 4 hours to the train… The journey from Przemysl to Lviv took about 3 hours… we had one hour extra… well we thought so… Marszruta left on time… the rain didn’t give up… very quickly came night and the bus was going in complete darkness… And although we couldn’t see.. we felt on our own that the main way to the border should be immediately repaired… The time of departure of our train was coming up but we still couldn’t see the lights of border. Finally, yes! First trucks in the queue… but wait.. why do we stop? The bus never stops behind trucks… it can go straight to the border… well not this time. Outside was cold and raining…and quite far from the border but we had just 2 hours till train’s leaving…
We were really mad when finally came to the Duty Zone… but there we could get to know better the world of smugglers… On Ukrainian side there wasn’t queue – guards let to go almost everyone… and those who they had doubts about… Could rely on support of the list of American Presidents … With big hope that we would get on time to the station we moved to Polish zone… As quickly as we came… the hopes disappeared… There were maybe 200 – 300 smugglers waiting for control… of course on argument that we are tourists and we are not smuggling anything, we got an answer that they also are tourists… ;-)
Among all these people there was one who got our special attention…Frytka - as we later got to know – completely drunk smuggler who was trying to force barriers on the border… We were thrilling from cold about an hour on the border… all the dreams about catching train we should leave in Lviv … finally control… soldier who was checking us was quite surprised when he didn’t find anything… We had to be ones of very few people last days at the border who crossed that without “any sins” . We were really relieved, finally sitting in a dry bus. But in mistake will be the one who thinks that it was the end of our ”adventures”. We were waiting for the rest of passengers, the bus was filling with people who one after one were taking off hidden boxes of cigarettes and other “souvenirs”. Man who was sitting next to me – Zygmunt had 60 of them. “Just sixty” as he said… this time was quite detailed control and he couldn’t hide more… The other was sharing sprit (from banka) with the others. The percentage of alcohol in their blood was growing up and still we didn’t leave Medyka – the driver was still waiting for passengers. Finally came the last part of people and after quarrel bus runned. Among the last smugglers was well-known Frytka who except hurling insults at everyone, tried to get off the bus when it was fasting to Przemysl … :-)
That night I have heard dozens of stories about Wroclaw – in fact three – but repeated few times ;-) We came to Przemysl after 12 am (GMT+1). Next train to Wroclaw left at…tada tada… 5:10am… shit! But the best news came just after a minute… the waiting room was closed till 3:30 am… The temperature was about 6 Celsius degrees, and on our wet clothes again appeared drops of rain… of downpour! Somewhere at the station homeless were smoking strange things.. We went to the railway guards but those just told us that in the neighborhood is a bar which should be still open… We found it near bus station, except us and lots of Ukrainians there were 3 students from Krakow. They were coming back from Romania – waiting for not-coming bus from Ukraine to Katowic e. Again a glimmer of hope appeared in our heads… when it finally came – glimmer burned off… They wanted from us 50 zl for journey with a unsure bus… It was 3am and soon we moved to waiting room at the station and bought tickets to Wroclaw. Finally we could fall asleep, at least till 5am. Przemysl left in our memories only bad signs… of rain, overcrowded ugly bars, unfriendly station, strange people and maybe I shouldn’t write about it, but also… closed toilets…
8 September 2007, Sunday
I just finished writing that text... Whatever to think after reading such relation... I must assure you that this journey left unforgettable memories... Who knows... maybe soon I would again visit our eastern neighbors? :-)
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