The language course itself offers a great many friends and excursions, but I also do fun stuff with friends not from the SOUL language course. One friend living in Lviv I’ve known for years and she is introducing me to her country, culture and other friends.
Playing squash and getting candy
My friend, two of her friends and I played squash together one afternoon. It was great fun — right up until I fell and sprained my ankle.
I gave my friend and her friends some hagelslag and other stuff to thank them for organising the squash session. Soon after, I was gifted some nice candy from my Ukrainian friends. I haven’t tried all of them yet, but they are quite tasty!
Писанка (Pysanka) egg art
I was over at a friend’s house. Her aunt gave me a master class ‘Pysanka’ — the painting of eggs. Well, the Ukrainians don’t say ‘painting eggs’ but ‘writing eggs’.
First, you sketch the design on the egg with pencil. (I had some design from Pinterest.) Then you heat the кістка (kistka), push it into wax and then draw the wax over the sketched lines.
Then, you put the egg in some pot with the lightest color ink. Everything not covered in wax will take on that color. You should then cover the pieces of the egg that you want to stay in this color. You will now repeat this for every color, from light to dark (put the egg in ink, add more wax).
You’re done with the painting when you have put the egg in the last (darkest) color. It is then time to remove all the wax by holding the egg over a candle and wiping the wax away when it gets liquid.
Going to the Carpathian mountains
Friends of mine invited me to go to the Carpathian mountains. A lovely idea! However, my Dutch upbringing didn’t prepare me for (a) heights in landscapes of any sort and (b) how to reach their tops. As I would soon find out, Ukrainians assess “risk” differently.
At the base of the mountains, several 4×4 pick-up trucks were lined up. The trucks were waiting and ready to take tourists to the top of the mountains — in the open cargo bed. My friends have the courage of lions, clearly. But it was a no for me — I’m not sitting in an open cargo bed, holding on for dear life as a 4×4 ploughs into the steep mountain side. So, I would sit on the passenger side inside in the chosen 4×4. I was still scared to death and still unable to hold a proper conversation in Ukrainian with the driver, but I tried!
Eventually we reached the top of the mountain — the view was beautiful! I had some bohrach from one of the ‘food trucks’ on top of the mountain. The woman selling bohrach was very friendly towards my foreignerness — she even translated her meat offerings to “oink oink” and “cluck cluck” with performative gestures. She also suggested that I come live in Ukraine, work the land and that she’d find a good Ukrainian girl for me 😅.
On the way back, the driver took his time, but unnecessarily so — surprisingly, the view and position when going down was less scary than going up.
Afterwards, we went to a popular hotel (Vezha Vedmezha; “Bear Tower”) to have some food. The food was okay but the eye was truly feasting — the hotel is beautiful, both outside and inside. Inside, there’s a lot on display — a parrot (alive!), vyshyvankas, dresses, old weapons, knight armours and other works of art. Outside, the hotel has many hiking trails starting and stopping here, a small zoo, an outside swimming pool. Location-wise it’s ideal if you enjoy traversing the mountains by foot, by 4×4, by quad, by motorcycle etc. There’s also a nearby town with places to buy souvenirs.
In conclusion
My Ukrainian friends are awesome — courageous in war, in traffic and in the mountains. I’m grateful for their generosity in sharing their culture and experiences with me — most of them truly new and unexpected.
I’m eager to improve my Ukrainian so that I might interact with the local people more. I may not have the courage to climb Carpathian mountains, but I’ll climb the mountain of Ukrainian grammar, mind you!
