I'm solvent

5/14/2014
I had my son send me money by Western Union.  He did it all online.  Took a couple of hours max and only cost $10.  I'll spare you the details but basically he buys bucks online and I go to a bank here, show them my passport and the code word he's given me and they give me the money.  It would take up to 10 days or maybe longer for a credit card to get to me (if ever), and up to 10 days for a wire transfer through the bank system.  And if it did work it still would require phone calls with 10 hours difference and the phone not working in my hotel room and all the hours I put in on this already.  The good news is WU is the solution in case I or any of you as dumb as me manage to do this again.  I'm sure I've bored you to death with this story so let's move on!

The rest of the month starting tomorrow is a clasical music festival. I couldn't see how to order tickets so I walked over to the concert hall just a couple of blocks from my hotel.  Neither the ticket seller or the other patron spoke English but we managed with my rudimentary Ukrainian   and I bought a ticket for tomorrow night's concert. I think it is a choral  production.  I will be sitting in the orchestra front section and the ticket cost me 50 hraina (less than $5).

At the cafeteria 2 middle aged businessmen asked if they could sit at my table in the cafeteria (the place was full). They are both here on business. One from Latvia and one from Poland. I asked them what they thought was going to happen here.  The Polish guy said "no one knows".  So there you have it.  The Polish guy told me that Lviv was the capital of the Galicia region which included at that time Krakow, Poland (the "next Prague") which I visited along with Vienna and Prague 5 or so years ago.  I liked Krakow the best of the 3 and this city even more  so as it is even more off the beaten path and more authentic and less gentrified.

Wandering the streets in the afternoon I walked into this building which turned out to be the music school. I suspected it was from the sounds emanating from it.  Piano, violin etc.  I wandered the halls poked my head into one of the many class rooms took some pics and videos of the students practicing in the hallways and stair wells whilst waiting to take their lessons.

The sounds and energy were thrilling!  I hadn't read anything about this in the guide books so it just goes to show how important is wandering and following your intutition (I almost didn't go in this unmarked building) .

Unfortunately I was unable to load these pictures from my old Canon camera into my new Samsung Tablet.  But I promise I'll go back and get some live videos with my new Samsung phone and some shots from the Lviv Philharmonic if nobody stops me.

It's great to see these young people providing hope for the future of classical music and their beautiful country!

Thanks for reading!