So I have finally saved up enough money to go to my home town of Lviv, Ukraine and try to live the majestic life of a digital nomad. The dollar is strong here, i.e., you can have a ball for just a few hundred bucks.
A friend of mine suggested the Old City Hostel downtown. The location is excellent and it only costs $8/night. Most people can speak a few words in English, but you are labeled as a tourist the moment you open your mouth. After spending a year in LA, I am convinced that nobody likes tourists and I hate being one. I thought I had come "home", but this place is as foreign to me as was Detroit. I forgot most of my Ukrainian, and Russians are generally frowned upon here. Having said that, I ask for directions and order food in Russian and locals respond in Ukrainian. As long as both of us are polite, we both understand each other perfectly, but the undertone is still there.
My only goal on this trip is to sit on my ass and read "Rich Man Poor Man", which is about 600 pages long. It is a pretty good half way through. The father in the book reminds me of my dad and I can relate to his kids too. I brought my boxing gear and signed up for a month worth of boxing (3 times a week) for $14.
So my daily routine is this: I wake up whenever I feel like it (love this part) on my squeaky-ass bunk bed. There are hardly any other people in my 4-bunk room and the ones that come only stay for a few days. Then I go to a coffee shop and read my book in peace (that's all I want in life). Then I take a $0.1 trolley to have lunch with my broke-ass father and listen to him talk shit about my choices in life. Then I either go boxing or drinking. The rest of the time I spend in the sweaty trolleys or walking around, exploring.
My favorite place is Kredens Caffe on the left side of the Opera Theater. They have the second floor with plenty of seating. Second best is McDonalds next door with the same setup. Forget about customizing your order and remember to call "diet coke" "coke light", which is fucking weird. The coffee shop that I mentioned earlier with a good view is on the top floor of the Magnus shopping center, left side of the Opera House. It is more of a restaurant, but nobody has said anything about me reading there. The only problem is that they open pretty late, around 10. So if you wake up early, you may have to settle for "fabrika izhi" (food factory) across the street. Their top floor opens at 10 or so, but it is a good place to watch the crowds go by.
Let me tell you something about coffee in this town. It tastes like garbage, but only because I've been spoiled with that LA artisan shit, like Blue Bottle and Itelligentcia. Every place has the same menu that includes espresso, americano, latte, and capuchino for maybe $0.80. Do you know why everyone has the same menu? Because those are the options on their fancy coffee machines. Nobody takes the time to make your coffee, they just take the capsule or push the button and charge you for it. I am yet to find a place where I can have regular coffee, like a french press or a drip.
Most places have good, local beer that costs just around $1. Take a moment to appreciate that price. When is the last time you could get wasted for $10 and still have money left over for a late night hot dog?
The talent in this town is fantastic, on par with LA. Plenty of young, gorgeous women of all shapes and sizes. Skinny, big ass, blonde, brunette, red heads, tumblr thigh gaps, high heels for days. You name it, they got it. The problem is that they know what's up, so the entire interaction is very mechanical. For example, I look like a local because I was born in Ukraine, but I think/act/talk like an American, because I grew up in US. So they either think I'm a local fucking with their head or a tourist pretending to be a local. I haven't figured this part yet.
I've only been to a few bars/clubs so far. Many of them have been mentioned in previous data sheets. Let's go down the list, all within walking distance of downtown.
Fashion club - you need reservations. It is not a good place to mingle, unless you've got a date. The hostess was gorgeous though.
Rafinad - it costs $4 to get in, which is a good thing, cause that's 4 beers equivalent and the local boys don't bother. So you end up with a bunch of rich tourists and a bunch of local gold diggers. It costs an extra $4 to sit down at a table. It costs an extra $4 to go to a strip club. You can walk in with $40 and afford anything you want. The strippers were shit, just regular girls who need the money. Them girls are not there perfecting a skill or a profession, they just walked off the street. But they are still good looking and skinny, which is a huge plus.
Split group - it's a restaurant, karaoke, titty bar. Combining all three sounds weird, but I guess it makes sense when you're competing for tourist money. I just had lunch there. I ordered a medium-rare steak and a glass of red wine. I can't find a ribeye in this town to save my life and that was the biggest fear I had coming here. Anyway, the meat was ok, the wine was better, and when the check came, they charged me for the fucking bbq sauce. I didn't complain because there are no tips anywhere. Fancy dinner with steak and wine for $20.
The best place for mingling is the P'yana Vishnia (Drunk Cherry) bar at the Rynok (market) square and only because they have outdoor bar tables where it is easy to turn and say, "Hey, do you speak English?". This is the best opener you've got going for yourself. The second best place is the Pravda (truth) place, which is a three-story brewery with live music. Both places are total tourist traps, with staff that don't give two shits about where you're from or what you are here for. But they are usually packed and have room to mingle. Both of those things are super relevant. I think they are all related too, because there was vague mention of a loyalty card that is good at whole bunch of these places.
Every other place is a sit-down restaurant and it's difficult to meet people there. For example, Mazoh is a bar for people into S&M, which is cool and all, but if you come alone, you'll sit at a table like a loser staring at some shirtless dude getting whipped. Same goes for Kryivka, which is a basement restaurant dedicated to freedom fighters that helped Nazis kill Russians during WWII. Of course they had their reasons, but this place and all the streets/monuments named after those guys is a permanent reminder of all the bad blood between the two nations. The point is that you don't go there for the girls, you go there for the food and maybe for a history lesson. This is the place where you can say, I would like 50cm of sausage and 400g of gorilka please. The word "gorilka" (flammable) is Ukrainian for vodka, and the words you use matter in a place like this. Of course, being a tourist trap, they have an English menu as well, but the sarcasm of mocking Russian dumplings is lost in translation.
Don't bother with American staples like burgers, pizza, and chicken wings. These people have absolutely no idea what American food is supposed to taste like. I'm dead serious. I walk by a pizza place every day and I have no intention of finding out what it tastes like. Stick with fresh salads, grilled chicken, and soups. Potatoes and salo (pig fat) is what Ukraine runs on.
I'll add to this later.
A friend of mine suggested the Old City Hostel downtown. The location is excellent and it only costs $8/night. Most people can speak a few words in English, but you are labeled as a tourist the moment you open your mouth. After spending a year in LA, I am convinced that nobody likes tourists and I hate being one. I thought I had come "home", but this place is as foreign to me as was Detroit. I forgot most of my Ukrainian, and Russians are generally frowned upon here. Having said that, I ask for directions and order food in Russian and locals respond in Ukrainian. As long as both of us are polite, we both understand each other perfectly, but the undertone is still there.
My only goal on this trip is to sit on my ass and read "Rich Man Poor Man", which is about 600 pages long. It is a pretty good half way through. The father in the book reminds me of my dad and I can relate to his kids too. I brought my boxing gear and signed up for a month worth of boxing (3 times a week) for $14.
So my daily routine is this: I wake up whenever I feel like it (love this part) on my squeaky-ass bunk bed. There are hardly any other people in my 4-bunk room and the ones that come only stay for a few days. Then I go to a coffee shop and read my book in peace (that's all I want in life). Then I take a $0.1 trolley to have lunch with my broke-ass father and listen to him talk shit about my choices in life. Then I either go boxing or drinking. The rest of the time I spend in the sweaty trolleys or walking around, exploring.
My favorite place is Kredens Caffe on the left side of the Opera Theater. They have the second floor with plenty of seating. Second best is McDonalds next door with the same setup. Forget about customizing your order and remember to call "diet coke" "coke light", which is fucking weird. The coffee shop that I mentioned earlier with a good view is on the top floor of the Magnus shopping center, left side of the Opera House. It is more of a restaurant, but nobody has said anything about me reading there. The only problem is that they open pretty late, around 10. So if you wake up early, you may have to settle for "fabrika izhi" (food factory) across the street. Their top floor opens at 10 or so, but it is a good place to watch the crowds go by.
Let me tell you something about coffee in this town. It tastes like garbage, but only because I've been spoiled with that LA artisan shit, like Blue Bottle and Itelligentcia. Every place has the same menu that includes espresso, americano, latte, and capuchino for maybe $0.80. Do you know why everyone has the same menu? Because those are the options on their fancy coffee machines. Nobody takes the time to make your coffee, they just take the capsule or push the button and charge you for it. I am yet to find a place where I can have regular coffee, like a french press or a drip.
Most places have good, local beer that costs just around $1. Take a moment to appreciate that price. When is the last time you could get wasted for $10 and still have money left over for a late night hot dog?
The talent in this town is fantastic, on par with LA. Plenty of young, gorgeous women of all shapes and sizes. Skinny, big ass, blonde, brunette, red heads, tumblr thigh gaps, high heels for days. You name it, they got it. The problem is that they know what's up, so the entire interaction is very mechanical. For example, I look like a local because I was born in Ukraine, but I think/act/talk like an American, because I grew up in US. So they either think I'm a local fucking with their head or a tourist pretending to be a local. I haven't figured this part yet.
I've only been to a few bars/clubs so far. Many of them have been mentioned in previous data sheets. Let's go down the list, all within walking distance of downtown.
Fashion club - you need reservations. It is not a good place to mingle, unless you've got a date. The hostess was gorgeous though.
Rafinad - it costs $4 to get in, which is a good thing, cause that's 4 beers equivalent and the local boys don't bother. So you end up with a bunch of rich tourists and a bunch of local gold diggers. It costs an extra $4 to sit down at a table. It costs an extra $4 to go to a strip club. You can walk in with $40 and afford anything you want. The strippers were shit, just regular girls who need the money. Them girls are not there perfecting a skill or a profession, they just walked off the street. But they are still good looking and skinny, which is a huge plus.
Split group - it's a restaurant, karaoke, titty bar. Combining all three sounds weird, but I guess it makes sense when you're competing for tourist money. I just had lunch there. I ordered a medium-rare steak and a glass of red wine. I can't find a ribeye in this town to save my life and that was the biggest fear I had coming here. Anyway, the meat was ok, the wine was better, and when the check came, they charged me for the fucking bbq sauce. I didn't complain because there are no tips anywhere. Fancy dinner with steak and wine for $20.
The best place for mingling is the P'yana Vishnia (Drunk Cherry) bar at the Rynok (market) square and only because they have outdoor bar tables where it is easy to turn and say, "Hey, do you speak English?". This is the best opener you've got going for yourself. The second best place is the Pravda (truth) place, which is a three-story brewery with live music. Both places are total tourist traps, with staff that don't give two shits about where you're from or what you are here for. But they are usually packed and have room to mingle. Both of those things are super relevant. I think they are all related too, because there was vague mention of a loyalty card that is good at whole bunch of these places.
Every other place is a sit-down restaurant and it's difficult to meet people there. For example, Mazoh is a bar for people into S&M, which is cool and all, but if you come alone, you'll sit at a table like a loser staring at some shirtless dude getting whipped. Same goes for Kryivka, which is a basement restaurant dedicated to freedom fighters that helped Nazis kill Russians during WWII. Of course they had their reasons, but this place and all the streets/monuments named after those guys is a permanent reminder of all the bad blood between the two nations. The point is that you don't go there for the girls, you go there for the food and maybe for a history lesson. This is the place where you can say, I would like 50cm of sausage and 400g of gorilka please. The word "gorilka" (flammable) is Ukrainian for vodka, and the words you use matter in a place like this. Of course, being a tourist trap, they have an English menu as well, but the sarcasm of mocking Russian dumplings is lost in translation.
Don't bother with American staples like burgers, pizza, and chicken wings. These people have absolutely no idea what American food is supposed to taste like. I'm dead serious. I walk by a pizza place every day and I have no intention of finding out what it tastes like. Stick with fresh salads, grilled chicken, and soups. Potatoes and salo (pig fat) is what Ukraine runs on.
I'll add to this later.
