The Improbable Continues

Lviv May 30, 2015, 12:30 PM

I just had the nicest experience.

My watch looked at me this morning with a blank expression. No indication that it was doing its job or knew how to.

I figured it was tired and needed a new battery.  I could sympathize with that as I had returned from my visit to the Carpathians at midnight last night after a somewhat exhausting journey “home” (back to Lviv).


I remembered there was a small electronics  store about a block from the hotel and went there.  The guy came out of the backroom but walked away after shaking his head and indicating he wasn’t going to open the watch.


Just then a young woman came out front looked at the watch and handed me a screwdriver.  I opened the watch.  She opened a package containing the matching battery but was reluctant to take out the battery in my watch though with smiles I encouraged her and she tried, but was unable to do so.


So I tried and ended up removing the whole watch works from its metal case and a little pin popped out. Now what?

She’s telling me something which I finally figure is to take it to another store and keeps saying what I imagine is the street name. And just as I’m wondering how I’m going to get all the tiny parts there without losing one she produces a little plastic bag in which she places them.

I get her to give me directions .. I know “straight ahead” and “left” and “right’' and can count pretty well now in Ukrainian and in edition I get her to write down the street name which she does in the Latin (English) alphabet, but I get her to rewrite in Cyrillic by starting to rewrite it that way as I want to be able to show it to a local as I wander around lost as I fully expect I will be from experience.
However, as it turns out, I am able to follow her directions. 

It’s only a couple blocks away and it turns out to be the greatest temple of time machines in the world or so it seems to me, given my present need. 

And upstairs around the corner is the guy who repairs watches who shakes his head as he sees my collection of parts.  But he takes them sits down at his work bench and in 10 or 15 minutes comes back, hands me the watch which is now showing the right time and says “Good Luck”.

“Good Luck” is something they say here instead of saying “Good By”. I figure maybe he isn’t going to charge me but I certainly want to pay him for the great thing he has done for me.  So I ask him how much I owe him and he says the equivalent of $1.50.

So I am very happy.  I could of course get along with just my smart phone as a time piece.  That’s what young people do. And although for a senior citizen I am quite phone savvy – I have even learned to program Apps and have developed one that I have used every day in my travels here -  and will be making available to all my readers for free – I still prefer the watch for telling the time.  Why?

Well, unlike with the phones of young people, mine spends a lot of time in my pocket and turned off so it doesn’t run out of power when I need to use it and a quick glance at my wrist to find out the time is still the best way to do so IMHO.

And when you are traveling by Train telling time is critical.  Unlike with buses which run quite frequently here, missing your train could be a big problem.

I didn’t miss my train yesterday, but I did get a rather unanticipated unpleasant surprise.

I decided to take the “Ghost Train” from Yaremche to Ivano-Frankivsk instead of the bus. I found that taking it from Vorokhta back to Yaremche was a very pleasant experience – not the bone rattling experience of the bus and better viewing of the countryside.

It was my hope that I would have lots of room and be able to get a seat with a table and use my computer to update my Blog which would be impossible on the bus

As I was returning on a Sunday I thought the train might be full, but had no idea how full it would be.
In fact we we were packed in like Sardines and I was lucky to get a seat.  Many were standing.  No fun on a 2 hour train ride in the heat.

Four of us were sitting on a seat designed for one or two plus it was the hottest day so far and there is no air conditioning on these trains other than the open window.

Briefly, I even thought of getting off and going to the bus station.  It would be no great loss financially to do since this 2 hour plus train cost just $.45 – yes the decimal point is where it should be Ie: less than 1/2 dollar.

But, I thought if Ukrainians can do this so can I. 

And indeed the young travelers, the vast majority of which were 20 somethings were having a great time laughing, joking with each other, playing cards etc.

What I found a little disappointing was unlike my other encounters I had no conversations.  No one appeared to speak English or was interested in doing so.
In fact no one paid any attention to me until one of the young women got up from her seat across the aisle, came up to me and said “yak spidaty”.  Not understanding her I said do you speak English and she nodded no laughing as were her friends as they were all watching us.

Everyone was in on the joke but me.  Not a pleasant experience.  I kept pondering this after she went back to her seat and ever since trying to figure out what she was saying.

The conductor came by to take our tickets. I had mine in my passport and I heard him say “U.S.”  To the group of 8 young people across the aisle from me.  But no one reacted or sought to engage me in conversation which they  have every time before.

In spite of the heat and being packed in, I found the 2 plus hour trip on a rather uncomfortable seat to be not that bad at all.  It went rather quickly, oddly  enough.

I guess watching the young people was entertaining and distracting, although I was a bit envious of them being so young and having such a good time and me being out of it.

Whoops! I just noticed my watch is not working again.  Well I know where to take it, but not now.

One other thing occurred on the “Ghost Train”.  Another totally improbable thing which has been so common on this trip - the improbable occurring so frequently.

In the corridor was this guy who moved back and forth with a T-Shirt on which it said “Call of Duty Ghosts”  It seems every time I looked in that direction I saw him lurking there. 

In Ivano-Frankivsk I caught my next train to Lviv.  There was just one other guy in my compartment.  We probably exchanged no more then 10 words. 

But, that was 10 more than I exchanged with the guy sitting next to me a few days before going in the other direction.

I think this is OK.  There’s nothing worse than being stuck having to talk to someone simply because you are sharing space.  This is something on which travelers in Ukraine seem to agree.
Although there is nothing more delightful than having an interesting and unexpected conversation with a stranger when both of you are so inclined.

A treat of which I’ve had far more than my fair share here in Ukraine.

P.S.   When I took my watch back to the guy who "fixed it" it he handed it back to me and said it was "broken".   But just a couple of doors down the street there were a couple of watch repairers who quickly fixed it as well as guy who replaced the broken lens.    

Now how improbable is that that all these experts would be so readily at hand when I needed them?