Lwow--Day 1

In the past four hundred years, this city has changed names constantly--from Lwow, to Lviv, to Lemberg, and also Leopolis. It has been under the possession of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg Empire, theIndependent State of Galicia, the Republic of Poland, the Ukrainian SocialistRepublic, the USSR, and finally an independent Ukraine!

I finally arrived last night after a ten-hour journey! This seems proper to such asubjectively long journey, into a different country, but I have only really traveled about 200 miles! The train from Krakow arrived without any problems, and I had an hour and a half to walk around Przemysl, a beautiful Polish city near the eastern border. I found Jesus exposed for Adoration at the local Franciscan Church, and began to pray the Rosary there, as I made a short pilgrimage to the various other historic churches. When I walked into the cathedral, I found the tomb of St. Bishop Jozef Pelczar, who was canonized recently! I didn't know that he was buried there!

I was able to catch a bus (for $6), and four hours later, I was in Lwow. This, of course, was a VERY long period of time, since it was only about 60 miles from Przemysl. However, due to the fact that we were leaving the EU, and that much smuggling happens on the border, we sat in the no-air conditioning bus forabout an hour and a half before they let us through, and after the "amerikanin'' was called out of the bus (me!) Apparently, the bus driver did not give the people my VISA form that I had to fill out at the border, and they were wondering where it was, and what I was doing. So, I finally climbed over the bags of onions, cucumbers, pantyhose, and whatever else was being taken over theborder and stored in the aisle of the bus, and made my way back to my seat--heavily laden with an odor of fresh kielbasa from the market, which apparently must be cheaper in Poland than in Ukraine, for the lady next to me was taking back about ten pounds, at least!

Well, finally all was ready to go, and we began our ride through the countryside of the Cossacks, the wild pagans and Orthodox Christians responsible for the martyrdom of St. Andrew Bobola, and the attacks upon many Polish and Ukrainian Catholics. As I looked out the window of the bus, while driving along the pot-holed main "highway,'' I saw many cottages with roosters, hens, goats, and cows wandering randomly around the yards, as laundry that had been hung up to dry was again soaked by the falling rain, and where babushkas chatted to their grandchildren in the potato fields. WOW! It is amazing difference a simple border can make--what was once the same land, inhabited by the same people, has no been separated off, and a separate "world" within a world exists here. As one person that I met later noticed, a Pole here in Lwow, mentioned, "it's as if everything stopped in the 1930's.'' I would generally agree with this, although I think the state of the city was better in the 1930's. The churches, now-turned offices or into the symphony, at least drew large crowds of faithful. The water utilities worked fine. Now, the city has no running water at all, except between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m., and between 6:00 and 9:00 p.m. The old Polish waterworks are still in place, and due to water breaks, rusted pipes, and the fact that the city is on a hill, far from any water; there is a severe shortage of water, with no end of the plight in sight, at least in the near future. Water to the city is pumped from about 60-70 miles away, uphill! Back to my journey, though--I arrived at the main bus terminal here, a clear remnant of once-prosperous Soviet times, when the block socio-realism was in style, and when a hotel was a rare commodity. Now, the communist hotel is closed and abandoned, and the bus terminal is falling apart--steel pipes androds protrude from the walls, and broken glass covers the ground, where people line up to buy their bus tickets. Mafia-run taxi companies park their cabs nearby, with the hopes of ripping off hapless and confused tourists (like me). At least, I knew that this was the case, and stayed away from these ''unofficial'' taxis. I was in a predicament, however--imagine being placed in the middle of a city larger than Krakow, without knowing the language, or the alphabet!! I thought that at the MAIN BUS TERMINAL, they would have at least have signs in English--yeah right! After wandering around hopelessly, notknowing which number of trolley-bus to take to downtown (the bus terminal islocated out in the fields outside of the city, in the middle of communistapartment buildings), I finally walked up to a city taxi. Luckily, Slavic languages are all related, and between me talking Polish and the man speaking Ukrainian, we figured out a rate ($5), to take me to the middle of the city, to the ''Latin cathedral.''

Driving about seventy miles an hour, going through a few red lights, and barely missing a few trolleys and busses, while near to losing our undercarriage on the cobblestone roads, which were still ''paved'' by the Poles in the 19th or 18th century, and are now full of potholes, we finally made it to theBernardine Church, near the cathedral. Here began another series of novenas and acts of trust--Lord, help me find somebody and somewhere to stay! I looked into the Flemish Baroque Bernardine Church, now the Church of St. Andrew and Greek-Catholic Church run by the Basilian order, since the Byzantine chantpouring out of the doors was just too much to stop me from walking bynonchalantly. I was struck by the amount of faithful--young, old, babushkas, nuns, and scantily clad girls all attended the Marian Devotion, which includedbanners, flags, lots of incense, chant, and icons!

I then walked down the street (oh yeah--forgot to mention that I DID find a Polish map of the city at the bus station) to the Latin-rite Cathedral.