Lviv rhymes with "can't leave"

For those of you who don't know, or can't tell by my trending infrequency in blog posts, I've found a place I feel entirely too comfortable in: Lviv, Ukraine.

How to begin? This town is insane. There is a terrible (terribly AWESOME) amount of access to sinful stimuli, despite all of its genuflecting god-fearers. And the best part? You get all this at a budget-seeker's price point.

For example, 0.5L beers in the market = $0.60US. And they're good beers. Well, most of them, anyway. And beer is not even considered alcohol here. Seriously. Open containers are not only permitted, but consumed relentlessly at any one of the monuments at which people sit, drink, get drunk and presumably, fuck.

Which leads me to: women in this town dress positively SCANDALOUSLY. Take a stroll down Svobody Avenue, and it's like you're watching a walk-off for a spot in a Warrant video. And if you follow a woman for long enough (no comments with regards to creepiness necessary), you'll learn she A) loves to shop, B) loves to try on everything and buy nothing, and C) works less than I do. It’s absolutely inspiring. And the icing is: the cost of learning this information plus a pack of cigarettes = $1. Not bad for a lifetime of good memories.

Additionally, women here are either devoutly religious, or completely uninhibited sexually. Or both. If they’re not genuflecting in front of some Virgin Mary statue, then they’re scissor-locking their boyfriends on a park bench with his hand down her crack.

Read that last sentence again. I had a real hard time with subject-verb agreement there. I could have put “their” hand down “their crack,” but then that would get confusing, and ultimately, you’d be wondering just how many genuflects it would take to expunge the sinful disappearance of the second knuckle beyond the anal seal. Right? Right???? Backpedaling!!!!!

Wow. That was one hell of a diversion.

This is a town with a very old-school feel. All the roads are cobblestone, and in fact, they recently tore up one of the main roads, only to lay it with new cobblestone. I guess they're trying to preserve the quaint rustic feel of the town, rather than lay down nasty asphalt. But this is especially important, as women in this city only wear stilettos. Again, think Warrant videos. And then think of them walking in these stripper stilts along a glacial ridge, which is pretty much the planar equivalent of the streets of Lviv.

The truly interesting thing is that this phenomenon has spawned an entire industry of heel repairmen. Sure, those guys exist in New York too, but when every corner has a sign outside with heels pasted on it, you’re reminded of Plinko, and that game is fucking awesome.

You may remember my experience in Krakow, and how much I loved it there. This is largely considered what Krakow was five years ago, before the bourgeois Euros and bad street musicians showed up. In fact, you can wander the streets here for days and wonder if there are any tourists here at all. This is mostly a product of the fact that most tourists here are either Ukrainian or Polish.

That’s probably the coolest thing about Lviv, actually. It has always been a city of contentious positioning, at separate times in recent history falling under Austrian rule, Polish rule, Russian rule, and now is considered by many in western Ukraine to be “the true capital of Ukraine.” And all of these cultures are omnipresent in the form of architecture and art, but interestingly, not food. They shun pretty much anything Polish here, and even blindly declare hatred of Poles. It’s nice to know someone knows how useless those people really are. It reminds me of the south. Racism rules!!!!!

I just love the use of “those people” in sentences. It really puts forth a hate doctrine much more pointedly, I think. And for the sake of my parents’ complete misunderstanding of my apparently overly subtle sarcasm, I don’t hate Poles. But I fucking hate southerners.

Oops! Got’cha ‘gin!!!

Police in this city are either 17 year-old fuckwits with uniforms that fit like magnums on their tiny cocks, or they’re drunk old cunts looking for their next vodka fix. Example: my friends and I left dinner the other night, after having exactly one beer between the three of us (at least SOMEONE was representing), we left the restaurant, and presumably were speaking English to one another. Two older policecunts came over and asked us for our documents, which I personally never carry with me for this exact reason. Once they had procured the passports of my two friends (an Aussie with a Swiss passport and an American), they began telling us we were drunk (in Ukrainian) and we had to pay a drunk and disorderly fine. For ONCE, we actually were NOT drunk, and NOW we were getting in trouble. I almost wet myself due to the staggering irony.

In any case, we were no more than 50m from the restaurant, where we’re well known by the staff, and despite our insistence that we could show them the bill, they refused and repeated their “fine” requirement.

When we were asked to exhale into their faces, the irony went off the charts. The last time I remember living something this ironic was when I saw a homeless guy panhandling while leaning on a bright red Ferrari on 2^nd Avenue... These cops were WASTED. As they were smelling OUR breath, THEIR breath smelled as if the 2^nd Avenue homeless guy had been drowning in a lake of Bankers Club earlier that day. I was openly laughing at this point, which admittedly, wasn't doing a whole lot to solve our problem. Insulting!!!!!!

At first, the “fine” had been quoted at 330 UAH (about $66) each. After some wild gesticulating and emphatic “Nie”s (Ukrainian for “no”) from the three of us (not to mention a call to my friend’s lawyer), we walked away paying 50 UAH for ALL THREE of us. So, all that, and we paid less than $4 each in “bribes.” Wallet-whip!!!!

Stray dogs are also rather prevalent here. I have an apartment in the center (that's right, bitch), and on my block I have one particular stray dog that looks like a fucking lion. He kicks ass, and his balls drag like a prostitute’s labia. Man, that’s a dually disgusting visual. But with stray dogs come… stray dog shit. It’s not as much of a problem here as you’d think, but you definitely need to watch where you’re setting down your stiletto, or you’ll end up with a smelly street gasket that will inevitably end up in your shag carpeting, and then you’ll never get the smell out, and you’ll be left wondering if it’s really better than smelling Igor’s vomit from three Fridays ago. Wait. What???

I’ve also seen three stray dogs gang up on a stray cat here. I thought cats and dogs only hated each other in cartoons, but I was proven horribly wrong. Instead, it dawned on me that in captivity, all animals are pussies.

The most popular restaurant in town is a sushi restaurant. Now, if you haven’t seen a map of Ukraine, then understand that Lviv is completely landlocked. The nearest port is Odessa (or maybe Gdynia), and each is a serious hike from here. Fact is, the quality isn’t awful, and actually satisfies my cravings rather adeptly. But, I don’t necessarily go there for the food. Instead, I go there to watch all the Ukrainians eat with trainer-chopsticks. It’s fucking amazing. No less than 80% of the patrons in the most popular (and one of the most expensive) restaurants in town use the rubber-banded chopsticks that we laugh at children for in America. Snobbery!!!!!

Seriously, it is a testament to the people here that they’re willing to try new things, even if they look POSITIVELY RIDICULOUS while doing it. But good for them. I guess.

But the best part. The absolute best fucking part of Ukraine, is the way the men dress and dance. It’s like dressing up a bonobo ape in a tan suit and white pointed loafers, and then watching it juggle Asian babies. Or even better yet, a bonobo threesome, if you’re into that.

First of all, the men in the clubs here dance like spastic electroshock patients going through heroin withdrawal. I have not yet been able to detect anything even slightly resembling a rhythmic gyration from one Ukrainian man after two months in this country. It simply does not exist. They flail their appendages in all directions (being careful not to dislodge their sunglasses), smell like anything between an Adidas perfume counter at Strawberries and a dumpster, and somehow manage to sweat through their fake D&G (in huge fucking letters across their back) t-shirts in 4 degree (C) temperatures.

On Sundays, the Rynok Square becomes a promenade of married couples strutting their stuff. I’m telling you, everything in this town has at least a modicum of facejocking. Whether it’s the women showing off their fantabulexcellent outfits, or it’s the men showing off their women in their fantabulexcellent outifits, someone is showing off something. But if I have to see another tan suit (four sizes too large) with white shoes and a white belt --just ONE MORE-- I may have to continue silently mocking the man wearing it. Judgmental!!!!

I have a theory that the men getting married assume they are going to grow up and get fat, and probably cheat on their wife (infidelity is as popular as shitty pop music here), so they need to get buy a suit big enough to accommodate them when their wife finally leaves them. Fat frugality!!!!!!

Another thing that is popular here, is older men dating younger women. I’m not trying to pass judgment or anything (for once), but I’m not sure what a man in his mid-30s could possibly have to talk about with a 16 year-old (this is honestly not uncommon). I guess I could say that it’s one way for men to assure themselves of dominance in the relationship, but then I guess I could say that the swirly-faced child-fucker just REALLY liked teaching English outside the classroom.

And on that note, I’ll mercifully conclude this edition of Lviv. There is more to my time here in Lviv, obviously, but I’ll also split this one up. I have been horribly lazy lately, and for that I can only continue to promise that I do have a couple of pretty good stories lined up for the next entry. Which, with any luck, will be later this week. I’ll also try and get up some pictures. I know some of you are more than a little curious about Lviv, so I’ll get on that too.

In other news, there's a near certainty that I'll be back in New York for a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. I either need to A) get some warm clothes, B) move south, or C) contract hay fever. I'm opting for warm clothes. And a hamburger.