Having spent all day in Krakow, we took the overnight coach to Lviv in Ukraine, which despite only a 5 hour trip by road, involved more than 3 hours crossing the border - half an hour to queue, 45 minutes to check our passports on the Polish side, another half hour in no man's land, an hour checking passports in Ukraine, and then just when we thought it was finally time to go through, half an hour to search the coach.

Even more fun was when the military style border guard in Ukraine, who had clearly never seen a British passport before spent two minutes staring at me and the passport, and then came back 45 minutes later, called me, and I had to get off the coach and explain to her why I was trying to enter her country. Luckily Halina explained it all for her as the border guard spoke no English, and I spoke no Ukrainian. However at least I finally got a stamp in my passport!












In Lviv I stayed with Halina's family and spent most of the time walking around the city. The city felt rather as I suspected - pretty buildings in the city, but rather shabby in the outskirts. The public transport was also incredibly cheap - 15p for a bus ride to the city centre from outside the city, but the roads were incredibly poor - some roads even had potholes in the potholes! But it was an experience.

Meeting Halina's friends, we went to a pub under the Opera House and met her sister after she finished work. Luckily almost all of the people I met spoke English, as unfortunately my Ukrainian is not too shabby, and everyone was really nice. That night we went to a club in the city, which despite being rather posh was only £5 to get in.