Rescued by Pig Farmers

"I received two punches during today's lectures and got eight pages of notes. Good value for two punches." - Mihail Sebastian

Getting back to Tarnow from Zalipie was just supposed to happen. And it did. In retrospect, that was an important missing link in the transport chain. I could have been sitting on the side of the road for hours, potentially. But just about 20 minutes after I got to the shelter, I heard that old minivan a'rumblin', I hitched up my skirts, showed some leg, and I was aboard.

Easy ride back, easy train back to Krakow. The train had Wi-Fi, so I didn't read. My Instagram had been hacked and someone made me follow, like 150 random companies. Spent most of the ride deleting them. It was nice to have something mindless to do after all the travelmath.

Pulled in and figured, since I was at the station and would have to leave again in just a few hours, I might as well buy the ticket to L'viv right then. Which was a good thought, because it turns out international tickets need to be bought at a special desk and the special desk closes early.

The special desk room was filled with shady characters. Fagin's boys, disgraced soldiers, unhanged murderers, etc. When it was my turn, I was told the midnight train to L'viv was sold out. Record scratch!

It was the only train. The next one would be midnight the following day. For whatever reason, there's only one way to get there and it's only late at night. I had read, though, that you could do things the hard way and take a train to the border, walk across and take a taxi to L'viv.

This seemed sketchy, but not like, I don't know bribing an official or anything. It was just going to be uncomfortable to haul my bags around in the dark, and there was a lot of uncertainty about the exact process.

I went ahead and bought the ticket for the border town of Przemysl. I tried to make puns like, "I'm no prize myself" out of it, but nothing satisfied. At least the ticket was cheap. Like, maybe $10.

Then I hauled my eyebrows back to the apartment to finish the last day of work.

The office was very generous to let me work from here for a week, and I was kind of selfish about the way I conducted myself. I met my obligations, but without any flair. I love the job, and I work with cool people, but I placed adventure and personal pleasure over complete dedication.

Did they notice? Is it cool? In any case, the actual vacation started... now.

Charged everything, packed everything, set my out-of-office emails, and headed into the unknown.

Train to Przemysl was hellishly packed. Bunch of drunk baldies and mean moms. I guess everyone was headed home to Ukraine for Easter. It was the same train as the L'viv one, but only fifty or so people are allowed to stay on the train at the border. Everyone else has to fuck off at Przemyl.

So, after a weird three-hour halfsleep, I fucked off at Przemyl.

It was around 2 AM. Fine little dark little stony town. I understand it's nice during the day. It was all blurry red lights and long slashes of smeary yellow lights.

I sang snatches of my all-time favorite song: "Cold streets, grey town, early morning, no one around. Cold streets, grey town, it's bound to get or bring you down."

The way to cross the border is to take a cab to ANOTHER little town and walk across. But I half-hoped the Magic School Bus would just float up offering rides to L'viv. I also held out hope some of the backpack people would be from California or something. But taxi after taxi took group after group away, and I was left alone. There was another train advertised as leaving at 4 AM, but... would it be sold out?

There was nothing for it but to just jump in. I'd already dipped my toe by coming this far. Took the next cab to Medyka (it's in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, dontcha know). He charged me a lot of money because what was I going to do, not pay it? Call the przolice?

I mean, it was a long ride and it was, like, $17. Would have been a lot more in the US where cabs are insane. I often wonder how people from Europe budget trips to, like, New York. It's a month's salary to get from the airport to the parking lot of the airport.

Taxis in Europe are very very cheap. $17 might be the most I've ever paid.

It was the middle of nowhere. There was a dark little gate and a sad little bar. Drunks smoking in front. I could see a highway in the distance with a long line of trucks, It had to be the border. Is that where you walked across?

Had to ask for help at a miserable grocery store. Bought some water and a security guard farted out the directions. Turns out it was the dark little gate the driver had let me off in front of. He was an honest thief.

It looked like the entrance to a closed park, but I walked through it. Creeping up on 3 AM. Mind mostly crunchy with nosleep. Just wandered Virgil-less through whichever malbolge it was. Probably the one where people who do the minimum at work are sent.

Got to a sad little office where a line of hopeful people waited for their visas. When it was my turn, the guy looked me up and down, flipped through a few pages and stamped it. Krick, krack, get into my sack.

Was that it?

Funneled down another path, the others shuffled along with me. One guy had a bicycle and bullied everyone the way some healthy people do. A lot of cyclists are like this. I think the mindset is:

"You are all sick fatties doomed to die a greasy death, whereas I am actually living my life. I'm not going to let the french-fried shadow of what a person can actually become stop me or even slow me. My life is important. Yours isn't or you would be on a bike."

Stumbled along in the barely-lit dark to another shed where there was another checkpoint. I was the only American, and it was a real surprise for the guard lady. She couldn't believe it, had to call for backup. Another lady came and was like, woah, I thought you were joking. The looked me up and down. Looked at the passport photo and back at me. Photo. Me. Photo. Me.

One of them rubbed it with her nails.

I was close to dreaming, my brain was an ether-soaked cotton ball, so I started to worry about the striped sweater I had in my bag. It's a Russian Navy sweater, and Ukraine doesn't like Russia. What if they went through my bag? It would be like trying to bring a Marlins jersey into Tampa.

They let me through. Would there be any more checkpoints? Noap. There was only the darkness of whatever they call this side of the border.  I was legally in Ukraine and 80km out of L'viv. If the taxi had been shared or the usual price, I would have done the whole thing for under $20. Pretty amazing, really.

BUT, the luck I had in filling in the missing transport link back in Zalipie didn't hold up here. Here, I thought for sure there would be obvious minivans or buses or cabs eager to take walkers the extra 50 miles to the b'ig c'ity, but... I guess if you're walking, you're a cheapskate, so they don't figure on a payoff.

It was also, like 3:30 and they were probably just now slapping their prostitutes out of the boiler room.

So... I stood on a corner and watched the trucks I'd seen on the other side slowly make their way through. Watched sadly as comfortable-seeming tourists yawned in their bus seats.

A currency exchange cart I thought was closed was actually open, but the lady who lived in it was asleep. She was beautiful (as all sleeping people are). She had a little fleece blanket. It was like a fairy tale or one of those robot Fortune Teller machines. After some other dude woke her up, I felt cool with handing her some money and getting some hryvnia.

It's pronounced GRIV-NA (I think).

I looked at the colorful bills and said, "'Ello, Grivna, fine day on the king's road."

Because of the war, the currency has crashed, so $1 is 25 UAH. Which meant it would be next to nothing to get a ride into L'viv, but there was no ride. In a kind of patient desperation, any time a car stopped near the dumb little building where I waiting, I made a hopeful face and said "L'viv?"

I guess I was hoping they were cabs, but in almost every case, they were just people. And they had only stopped to piss on the walls of the building I was standing next to. It was the border piss building.

Most people just shook their heads, and you know, if some foreigner in San Antonio was like, "Austin? Austin?" he wouldn't get to Austin.

One dude was like, "NIE!" which, if it doesn't mean "no" certainly had all the implications of "no." I went back to my corner and tried not to get peed on. I wasn't totally out of hope yet, just sort of weary and clumsy feeling.

I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was NIE man. He said "L'vov" to me.

A note here. This place is called Lviv, L'viv, Lvov, Lwow, and all kinds of shit. I don't know who makes the rules, and the way he said it wasn't the way I had asked, but it was a miracle in any case.

Another note. The general rule in Eastern Europe is: Young guy in track suit, cool. Old guy in regular suit, cool. Old guy in track suit, danger. Young guy in regular suit, danger.

This guy was in his 50s and in a track suit. I thought of that great line in 1984, when Winston has picked up a girl for the evening:  "When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same."

Driver had told me to go away once and was wearing a track suit, but I went with him just the same.

As it so happened, a passenger in the back of the van assumed I was American or European and asked the driver to give me a break. He, the passenger, sat next to me and told me his name was Sasha. He spoke very good English.

We were off to Lvivovow. I was relieved and felt extraordinarily lucky. I don't think I was in any danger on that corner, but it wasn't comfortable, and I would have had an encounter with a drunk at some point.

The sun was coming up and everything was limned in a dark, dark blue. The sky was like one of the domed churches of Santorini.

Sasha told me that they were pig farmers who had been on the road for several days. They worked in Denmark but were home for the holidays. As we bounced through a big pothole, he said, "Ukrainian roads!" and smiled.

He told me the driver, who was drinking cognac out of an airplane bottle, claimed to be uncomfortable driving in Germany because the roads were too nice.

He told me about the fighting in Crimea and how the country was mad at the government for not spending more money on the war. I thought, but did not say, that it was the opposite in the US.

"There is no money, so everyone gives. All the grandfathers knit socks for the soldiers. All the grandmothers give their last tomato for the soldiers."  How I loved both of those images.

He told me the driver, our driver, would regularly deliver food to the front lines. "Sometimes just an onion."

When the driver lit a cigarette and reached into his bag for more cognac, I laughed, and Sasha said, "Do not worry, he has been driving for forty years."

I was invited to meet Sasha's girlfriend in another town, He hadn't seen her for six months, and they only had a few days together before he had to get back to the Danish pig farm, but he offered to use that time to show me around their village. Jesus. He'd already rescued me.

Oh, they charged me $4 for the 90-minute drive. I'd say that canceled out the cab.

When they dropped me off, he said, "I hear your voice and tell driver to help you, because America help us, so we help America." It was touching. They sped off, drunkenly swerving toward the potholes on purpose.

And now I had another problem. I was at my apartment, but it was 5:30 and I wasn't expected until 7. It was cold on the doorstep. The door opened and a very old woman with a mop beckoned me in, She was cleaning the hallway tile and wearing a uniform. Did she work for the state? It was so peaceful watching her work.

I was happy to be inside and climbed up to the apartment number. The stairs were marble and slippery. It got dark inside when the State Mopper left.

The apartment number I wanted wasn't there. I pulled out all my notes. I was in the wrong building.
Slipped on the stairs and the wet tile, back into the street. Found the right building. Figured out the code lock, went up (more tile, more marble, more darkness),

When I got to the door, my host stepped out. I thought I was way early, but the time zone here is an hour ahead! So I was only a little early, and so was she.

She showed me everything and on her way out made sure I understood that the little plate of Armenian pancakes was for me.  "There is no meat!" she said, "Only herbs! You understand herbs?"

I did. I understood them in bed.

I slept in my clothes, clothes which had been in a train, cab, customs house, piss building, pig van, and now a strange bed.

Hello Ukraine and Good Night.