Kolomyia

Kolomyia, Ukraine,  Sunday, April 29, 2018

It seems otherworldly.  A bit gritty.  Kind of a ghost town.  Everything's closed up.  But the few people walking on the streets seem normal.  And they don't seem to be paying much attention to me.

Wearing a camera.  A little unsure on my feet. And obviously lost walking up the street and then back.  I'm glad they are not paying much attention to me.  Must mean I'm not as out of place as I feel.

And as everywhere I've been in Ukraine, no fear of attack or crime.

I'm recovering from "train lag"  like jet lag but only because of lack of sleep. No time zone change.  I'm trying to find my way to the center of this little city/town using Google GPS.   It takes me a while to get oriented on the map.  There must be a better way than just walking back and forth on the street looking at the GPS marker to find my direction?

Then suddenly, as I round a corner, it's a different world. I  see people and activity and realize it's Sunday that's why everything was closed up on the roads into the center. And here in the center, it's fresh and polished

The 16-hour train trip wasn't all that bad.  Considering the fact I shared my compartment with a family of two hyperactive boys Maxine 4 1/2 and Alex 10 and their mom and dad (alternately as  they had another berth in an adjacent compartment where they took turns avoiding the tumult of their boys who ran up and down the corridors and jumped from one upper berth to the other until Maxine suddenly fell off the bunk and crashed to the floor with a huge bang followed by crying and Mom and Dad administering to a cut he sustained on the back of his head.

This event signaled the end of the 5-hour raucous disruption and as it was just 10 PM, as we settled down to sleep I thought I might get a goodly amount. 

The next morning as I spent a couple of hours with them, I became as fond of this little family as I was annoyed with them the day before and was almost sad to leave them, particularly little Maxine in spite (or because?) of his joy in sticking his hand in my face.

I'm guessing I got about 5 hours sleep.  Far less than I needed hence the "train lag" as I walked into town after checking into my strange hotel/ guesthouse and taking a brief nap.

Nice people, the owner, and his wife. The room and bathroom really nice but the windows don't seem to open, there is no shower curtain (have to take a kind of bath or low shower)  no place to hang towels in the bathroom only one electrical outlet to charge computer and phone and its next to the sink with no place other than the bathtub to rest the computer and phone but at $12/night who's complaining?  Not me.

First impressions?  Not much to see here except for 2 notable museums.  A great place to practice Ukrainian since no one speaks English here.  A quiet place to chill and decompress after the Train, and the big cities Odessa and Lviv.

Undecided if I'll stay the 4 days of my reservation but I found a nice restaurant/pizza/coffee (not on Google but just from walking). A place to hang out and where I am writing this and although this isn't Karpaty it's enough of a change to look deeper.

Update. Wednesday, 10/2/18 10 AM.
First impressions can be misleading.  Very.  I found the hook to hang towels in the hotel bathroom.  The hotel owner showed me how to open the windows. And another electrical outlet, And I've been taking baths to relieve the aches of travel.  Nice.

And now I find this is the best town ever.  Lots to see. Rather than cut short my 4-day visit I've decided to cancel my 3-day visit to Ivano Frankivsk and return here for 3 days after my 2-day visit to Vorokhta where I head tomorrow.

What I like about this town is the beautiful architecture and the many pedestrian streets to wander about. No cars in the center of the city.  Makes it peaceful and provides good air quality. Just the place to chill out after the big cities.  The pace is slower. A welcome change.

And a great place to learn Ukranian as they don't speak English here.

I've found the cafeteria, finally.  Every town seems to have one in Ukraine and its the best place to eat and get healthy food at bargain prices.  You don't even have to know Ukrainian you can just point to the food.  Well, that's what I use to do, now I know most of the names of the foods.

I had a nice chat with some boys.  Between us we were able to translate to English the sign on this building, It's the center for young people providing training in dance and programming. An eclectic grouping.  I asked the boy with the best English if he was a programmer.  He said no he's into dance.

There seemed to be a lot of group gatherings in some of the restaurant/dining halls that I wandered into.  I took a quick picture in one of them and escaped to the street to avoid objections.

Bur, as I was walking away, this really big guy suddenly appeared in front of me and pointed to my camera and with a threatening manner asked me what  I was doing,   Uh oh! 

I wouldn't mind if he asked me to delete the photos but I feared he might seize my camera which is new and I am quite attached to and has priceless pictures and videos from my trip here. 

In my flawless English (fortunately) I told him I was a tourist just taking pictures.  His face immediately broke into a big smile and he shook my hand and said "Good Luck".   "Good Luck" is what people say instead of goodbye here when they know you're a foreigner.  Whew!

Today, I walked to the Bus station, 20 minutes from the center and got my bus ticket for the trip to Vorokhta tomorrow where I hope to head up the mountain and visit my friends like I did last year.  

I've been working on my Ukrainian and this will be the midterm exam for me as they speak no English.   I was able to read the schedule board and order the ticket all in Ukrainian which is very satisfying.  I think of it as like the thrill for my grandsons as they learn and improve their English and we empower ourselves, learn and grow even much later in life.

I've lots of beautiful pictures of this small city's architecture, but I plan to focus on them in a  Blog post when I return in a couple of days.

The trip tomorrow will be my first by bus this year over terrible roads but for only a little over 2 hours.  And I am rested enough to climb up the hills to see my friends if they are there.  I think they'll be quite surprised to see me.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading!