Crossin' the Border - Part 2 of 2

Lviv has a wild restaurant scene. Our options for lunch included:

-"At the Golden Rose" Galician Jewish Restaurant, where the menus have no prices and the customer has to negotiate their bill. The total paid depends directly on the customer's ability to bargain.

-Trout, Bread, & Wine, where only trout, bread, and wine are sold. The story is that an early city disaster forced a trumpet-player, who made the most delicious Carpathian trout in town, and a clock-maker, who was a wine expert and baked the best bread in the city, to share a house. To supplement their low municipal salaries, they sold trout, bread, and wine in their home's ground floor.

-THE FIRST LVIV GRILL RESTAURANT OF MEAT AND JUSTICE, is said to have been opened by the executioner once executions were discontinued in the city and is decorated with all manners of guillotines and torture devices.

-Lviv Coffee Mining Manufacture can safely claim to have the only underground coffee bean mining (yes, you heard that right) operation, which visitors to this cafe can experience for themselves!

We chose дім легенд / House of Legends, which is the narrow house of the town's old chimney-sweep, with eight differently themed rooms and a car on the roof (because, why not?).

We sat in the Book Room (rumored to have every book every printed about Lviv!) and ate delicious 'banosh' (cheese grits with bacon) and paprika chicken out of tiny hot pots, supplemented with Ukrainian beer.



We followed lunch and sightseeing with a drink in Kryjivka, the Ukrainian Nationalist Bar. It's at a secret address near the Rynok (square) and requires a password ("Slava Ukrayini", Glory to Ukraine, but you didn't hear it from us!). We tried honey vodka and mint vodka paired with honey pickles. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Polska. We located the correct blue and yellow van and, after a longer-than-expected wait, started our slow, erratic chug back to the border. When the driver stopped to let folks off, he would take off again milliseconds after their second foot lifted off the step, door wide open. Even so we were worried we would be late for our train!

When we pulled into the lot it was already dark. We high-tailed it to the guardhouses, where we encountered two relaxed and good-humored guards, who both thought it was hilarious that we spoke Polish. ("Bryan. *nod*. Haircut!" the Polish guard quipped after reviewing B's old passport photo). We were out in no time and were thrilled to be back in Poland (and on time to catch our overnight train, no less!). We hiked our way back towards our pick-up point with Freda and had time to snag kebab before rushing onto the overnight train...

...in which we were the only passengers in the whole train car. We had our very own conductor, who was quite nice, took our orders for hot tea the next morning, and checked on us to make sure we weren't too chilly. Second class service! We woke up to a brilliantly sunny day in Warsaw and wondered, had we actually been in Ukraine the day before, or did we dream it all?