Luck in Lviv

The roads to Lviv were pretty good. According to the map in was following I was cycling on a motorway but it only a single carriageway for the majority of the trip.

Along the way I hit a bit of a milestone. One which I know I actually achieved a while back. According to the GPS I had cycled 1000 miles!

Rather annoyingly, there were large distances where I didn't use the GPS (the whole of UK and Belgium for instance) or the batteries had died without me realising. There was also the nuisance that the bike computer didn't work for a long time after the bike breaking in Belgium.

Despite this, I was very excited to get to that milestone!

I got to Lviv sometime around 1600 and was greeted with the usual potholes and cobbles I came to expect of larger towns.

I stopped somewhere in the middle of town and tried to get in contact with a guy I had contacted via Couchsurfing. He told me to try and call him again at 2100 and maybe he'd be able to help.

I couldn't wait around til that time for that level of uncertainty so I desperately looked for a hostel/hotel. With no internet I was really beginning to struggle. The joy of Europe was that I was able to pay for internet at least.

I ended up going through my emails and found that someone else from couch surfing had replied and gave me his number. I managed to get hold of him and he told me to wait at the train station. I was miles away from there but I took the chance and got there as soon as I could.

I think I was there for about 20 minutes before I met Mykyta.

I was in one of the waiting halls of the train station and must have stood out like a sore thumb because he just came straight up to me and asked asked “Martyn?"

He happened to have two Turkish guys who were travelling to Poland that he was hosting with him. They just looked at me in shock with how much I was carrying.

I had asked on my couchsurfing request if I could get help booking a  train ticket to the Russian border and Mykyta was more than willing to help. He suggested that whilst we were in the station that we get the ticket there and then.

After about an hour of having to wait in different queues (turns out the ticket offices are a mystery even to Lvuv locals) we managed to get my tickets.

A friend of Mykyta who showed later inputted the address of where I was heading for the night then they all left, leaving me to navigate Lvivs streets in a quickly darkening dusk.

The road was horrendous, added into the mix of potholes and cobbles were tram tracks which were little more than metal gutters that worsened the state of the road.

When I got to the address given to me, I was in a housing estate with blocks of flats as far as the eye could see. I felt a little nervous if I was being honest, just because these types of places are normally rough as hell back home.

Mykyta came and met me and gave me a hand with my stuff to the 6th floor in a lift no bigger than an airing cupboard. How I managed to get the bike up was nothing short of a miracle.

The flat itself was really nice, but I couldn't help notice the vast amounts of jars everywhere. It looked like a pickling factory.

There was a whole group of people here who I got introduced to systematically. Most of them spoke at least enough English to hold a conversation with.

One of the girls asked me if I liked sushi as they were having a party of sorts and were making it from scratch. To be honest I haven't had a lot of sushi, but what I have had I liked. I was even made to make some sushi myself, the inclusion was really nice!

After the sushi Mykyta took the Turkish guys to the bus station as they were leaving that night. So I was left alone with the rest of the party. I didn't feel at all nervous, everyone was extremely friendly. I also found out that thus wasn't Mykyta's flat, but I would be staying here out of convenience. 

Then the night took a turn that I never expected.

I was asked if I liked 7 wonders. I didn't understand and it was explained to me that it was a board game that these guys played. In the end I had an amazing night playing a highly strategic board game (I came a very close second place).

In went to bed feeling very lucky that I was able to get hold of Mykyta earlier that day.

In an alternate dimension I imagined myself still waiting for that other guy to get in contact with me.