L'viv - September 2009, Part 3

One of the things that totally astounded me this time in L'viv was the prevalence of Catholic and/or Greek Catholic churches. I'm not sure we saw or went into an Orthodox Church at all, and I'm certain we saw no Baptist or Pentecostal (or other Protestant) Churches anywhere. Of course, we were in the city center, in the oldest part of the city, and the history of L'viv is Catholic - what with being a part of Poland for years, and the Austro-Hungarian empire, and so forth. Really, that part of Ukraine has been part of Western Europe much more than a part of Eastern Europe over the centuries. Mel was meeting with the other team leaders on Monday afternoon (a week ago! wow does time fly by fast) at a local coffee shop. I and the wife and 3 girls of one of the other team leaders met them there. The guys were still meeting, so she and the girls left to go rest, and I decided to go over to the church that was literally right beside the coffee shop and 'check it out' again. Photo found here.

I sat inside for a long time, probably half an hour. I watched tourists come in, look around, snap some photos they were not supposed to take inside, and leave. I realized after a few minutes that there were workmen very quietly doing repairs behind a couple of barriers in two of the side chapels. Five or six other people came in, crossed themselves, sat on a bench or knelt down and began to pray. A woman mopped the floor, finished and then went back behind the fenced off area, went into a little door and came back out a few minutes later dressed in very nice street clothes, and left. An elderly man brought out a step ladder, climbed up behind the altar and removed the tops of several huge candlesticks, placed them on a tray, climbed down and left.

All in all very peaceful and mostly very quiet. The outside world was left behind. Everything was centered within the church. Quiet. Peaceful. Cool. Other-worldly.

I sat and looked at the paintings on the ceiling - amazing artwork, done with a lot of pink here and there. I realized that the pink 'marble' columns were really just painted expertly to look like marble. I noted that the original artists were expert at perspective and shading to make painted vases and flowers look real. I stared at the statues located along the walls, high above the congregational area and back behind the fence that kept the public out of the most 'holy' area. I noted that most of the religious paintings had to do with Mary. There were huge statues of popes and bishops and other church people. Mary here, Mary there. Photos of Pope John Paul II, flags with beautiful Ukrainian embroidery and religious embroidery. And more stuff about Mary the more I looked.

I started to feel sick. Disgusted. Sad. I had hoped to experience quietness in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city center. Instead I felt the weight of idolatry and heresy on my shoulders.

When I had looked my fill at what was really around me - I got up, stiffly from sitting on a hard wooden bench in a cool building, and made my way out the door.

It is hard to explain exactly what it was like. I have been in a number of Catholic and Orthodox churches here in Europe. In fact, I've been in this particular church before at least twice. This is the first time I have been so very aware of the 'wrongness' of my surroundings.

I think part of it is I have done some study on Mary worship and what is going on within the Catholic church. I've also seen and read reports on the apparitions happening all over the world (I wrote about that before just a bit) and I have recently learned that Pope John Paul II actually worshipped Mary above Jesus Christ.

The crucifixes have always bothered me just a bit, but they are so common I hardly even see them any more. I've never been offended by the religious paintings of Jesus, the Apostles or the other saints. But Mary worship - that offends me deeply. More deeply than I can say, actually. There is very little difference between Mary worship and the worship of Ashtoreth or Isis or a host of other female deities from ancient religions.

There is very little difference between Mary worship and making the character in a book a big black woman named Papa and saying that is "God the Father". Even the Protestant Church is beginning goddess worship.

It all makes me want to gag.

I left that church and walked through the streets of the city center for several more minutes.

Sadness.

Knowing the history, at least a bit of it, of the Catholic church in Europe and around the world. Knowing what is taught, at least a little bit. Seeing what is taught by pictures, statues and furnishings of the Church buildings. Old man begging outside of the church. He looked Jewish to me for some reason.
The last morning we were in L'viv we heard loud chanting and praying. At first we thought it was coming from the statue of Mary that is in the park across the street. I was actually glad to see that it was coming from the area of the cross with Jesus on it instead. I have no idea what they were doing. It went on a long time. My only hope is that they were actually worshipping Jesus Christ. Just recently, within the last three or four months, the group that put the statue of Mary up in L'viv has put one up here in Kherson in one of our parks. Goddess worship. Plain and simple - goddess worship.

It makes a true Believer ill. But it no longer surprises me. We live in the Last Days and I expect to see more and more of this kind of thing happening all over the world.

(As I look up the name of the church in our guide book, I understand why all the Mary stuff. Doesn't change my thoughts, feelings and opinions, however: Arch Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

L'viv - September 2009, Part 2

When making plans to go to L'viv, Mel had asked Doug (the team leader in L'viv) how to get from the train station to the flat we were staying at. Doug told us how to find the taxi stand, and that was great.

We arrived in L'viv a little after noon on Monday. We'd gathered up all our stuff and were out the door of our coupe' and off the train fairly quick. We walked down a set of stairs, into a passageway under other train tracks, and voila! We were already out into the entrance area of the train station.

Now why - tell me WHY - does the Kiev train station make you go up AND down stairs (or vice versa - down AND up stairs) to get to your correct train? The system in L'viv is wonderful - one set of stairs, period, up or down, not both. All these thousands and thousands of people getting on and off trains with bags and more bags and boxes and other stuff. Old ladies carrying heavy things up and/or down stairs just to get to the train where you have to climb up very steep steps to get on to the train. Why not just make it simpler? Like platforms at train level? And if there must be stairs - just ONE set, and not two that have to be negotiated?

Or, to continue this rant I find myself on - why schedule two trains to arrive at one station at the same time, from opposite directions, on two different tracks with a platform inbetween that train A unloads on to, while train B unloads on to the platform directly in front of the train station. Thus train A people must climb down out of train A with all of their baggage, walk down the platform until they find the correct wagon on train B that has opened it's doors and put out it's steps so you can now climb up off the platform onto train B, walk across train B to the other door (yes, I know it's just 4 or 5 steps, but that is NOT the point here!) and then climb down, with all of your heavy luggage and stuff once more, so you can go find a taxi or your driver or your person who is waiting to welcome you? Why do they make you walk THROUGH a second train? Tell me why they do this?? And yes, the train from L'viv was train A and the train from Kiev was train B this morning and we did the mountain goat/Ukrainian train trek down and up and down again with all of our stuff, along with a couple hundred or more other people today. Of course, it's funny - all these people getting off of one train, out of maybe 8 or 10 wagons (maybe more, I didn't count), all funneled into one doorway on the train opposite. Up and over, up and over - and old babushka - if you push me one more time or try and cut inbetween Mel and me one more time - I may just step on your foot. I've already had it with the young woman who came and stood so close to me that she actually set her heavy purse/bag on top of my purse so I could bear the weight of both. I just "accidently" bumped her aside with my very ample hip. The nerve some people have! I think I'm developing a national attitude - one I deplored when we first got here. Shove, push, shove, you are in my way, get out of my way. sigh

You know, when I thought about writing this post, I in no way had a rant in mind. Hmmm. Guess it was in there, just waiting to come out. I like riding the trains - I just get tired of the stupidness and rudeness at times.

Enough! Enough! On to other things!! Please! That was then - this is now!

We walked out of the wonderful makes sense L'viv train station, turned right and walked over to the taxi stand. Just as the people in front of us finished their discussion about where and how much a taxi would be for them, Mel's cell rang, so we stepped back and he answered it. It was Doug saying he was on his way to pick us up. Yea!

Doug took us to the building we stayed in before. He had reserved a room for us on the 4th floor. Now the first time we stayed there we stayed on the 2nd floor and really liked the flat. It was very Ukrainian, only slightly modernized, and that was fine with us. We don't need a lot - just a bed that will hold us both, a table, something to heat water with, a couple chairs. That flat had even more, just older stuff. The flat this time was on the 4th floor, as I already stated. Now, our flat here in Kherson is on the 3rd floor - 42 steps up from the outside level. The 4th floor flat there in L'viv (just one floor higher) was 88 steps up from the outside level. Come to think of it, this may be the beginning of my rant about the train station - we did a LOT of stair climbing, walking UP hills and down hills, and more stairs this week! :-) I was very pleasantly surprised to find that if I hadn't been out walking all over L'viv, I could do those 88 stairs without stopping. However, at the end of the day, when my legs were tired, my feet hurt and I was in desperate need of a certain room in that flat - well, I had to stop each time and take a few breaths on the 3rd floor.

The room was wonderful! Moderized, light and airy, very nice. The chairs were so-so and the table was so-so, but the bed was great. I didn't take a photo of the bedroom because I didn't think to take one until just as we were leaving - and the bed was unmade. Excuses, excuses! Here is the view out the window in the bedroom, though: I'll write more about this photo in another blog. For now, let me just say - this was wonderful. It was very relaxing. We set up our laptops on the table in the evening and did email and facebook stuff. We sat and talked. We did NOT watch tv. I watched fireworks one night over the building opposite from us. But really, we didn't spend very much time there, except for sleeping. There is a lot of traffic on the streets in the immediate area, but the windows are new YevroSteel (EuroStyle) and we only heard the loud music and the chanting of the priests a couple of times for about half an hour each. Not bad. Not bad at all.

All for tonight. I have more photos to post tomorrow, but right now I've hit a wall - what with climbing all those stairs, and going through the Kiev train today on my way home, and so forth and so on, and all the excitement of having guppy babies in the house, and catching up on the news. Whew! And tomorrow - laundry, and cooking, and changing the sheets, and getting ready for Sunday. Such an exhausting life! ha ha! Maybe tomorrow I won't be in such a "mood" as I've been in today. This is unusual for me...will have to ponder awhile and figure out what why....

L'viv - September 2009, Part 1

Mel was asked to go to a City Team Leaders meeting in L'viv. It was a fairly important meeting, but a decision needed to be made about whether he would go or not. It's 20+ hours one way on the train, or a 3-4 hour marshrutka ride to Odessa and then overnight about 8 hours on the train. Either way - an overnight trip. Did Mel want to do 2 20 hour trips in a row, or did he want to go to Odessa and do two shorter overnights? Or ... did I want to go along with him and we'd take a 2 day vacation after the meeting? Ha! Was there any chance, really, of my saying, "No, I'd rather stay home and wash windows"? Mel asked Doug about a place to stay and Doug found us a flat in the same building we stayed in last year. Mel bought the tickets and Sunday after church, we headed over to the train station and went to L'viv. L'viv-Kherson train (this is actually the train we came back on today, but hey, they looked exactly alike from the outside! I think. The inside decor of the coupe' to L'viv was old, old, old. Today coming back it was just one old. The trains from Kherson to Kiev, on the other hand are new-er. :-> ).

We always buy a whole coupe' so we have extra room and this time of year that is no problem - there were a lot of empty berths on the train over there. Having the whole coupe' gives Mel the opportunity to raise the top bunk above his, secure it up and then he can sit upright rather than hunched over or lying down the whole time. We leave the one above me down and put all our luggage up there rather than on the floor (when the heater is on, the luggage next to the heater gets really hot).

Clickity clackity down the tracks we went. First to Nikolaev, then north, then west to L'viv. The tracks from Nikolaev north are amazingly bad. I did some embroidery for awhile, but when we got to the really rough part I decided I really didn't want any blood stains left on what I was making, caused by poking my fingers instead of the cloth! It's kind of funny, actually, to lie down on the bunk and just jiggle and bounce over that rough section for a few hours. Too bad it doesn't jiggle and bounce any pounds off at the same time... Walking down the hall to the toilet is fun, too, especially when you are trying to pass someone and the train suddenly throws you right into the person, squishing them up against the handrail. Oops - sorry! The toilet - well, let's just say it's better to wait until that rough section ends, if at all possible.

It was nice watching the fields go by, looking into people's gardens and seeing lots of pumpkins and cabbages either ready to be harvested, or lying there already harvested, just waiting to be picked up and stored away for winter. Fields of corn, ready for harvest or already harvested and shocked. Hundreds - no, thousands of geese between here and L'viv and the closer to L'viv, the more there were. It was really easy to see the white ones against the emerald green grasses, more difficult to see the gray ones against the darker roads. There were geese by the dozens in gaggles kilometer after kilometer. And some ducks, too, but they were much harder to see unless they were actually swimming in the ponds, streams and slimy pools by the tracks. (click on this thumbnail to see a photo I found on the web of geese in Ukraine) Goats by the tens and dozens, and cattle by the tens and dozens as well. Did not see any sheep at all that I can remember, though. Ravens and crows - lots of ravens and crows. A few dogs here and there, a couple horses pulling wooden wagons with car tire wheels, several cowgrannies and cowgrampies (heh heh) standing around watching over their herds and flocks (altho I don't think goats come in flocks - Sue will have to tell me what a herd/flock of goats is really called - a band??). This is one of the nice things about such a long train ride - it is not all in the dark, but there is afternoon viewing of the countryside and morning viewing as well, with bouncy clickity-clackity sleep inbetween. Lots to see when the tracks aren't lined by trees and bushes!

Unfortunately, it's not easy to get good photos from the train. I've tried in the past and they usually turn out horrible, so ... no photos of the countryside. The windows are usually filthy, on the outside, on the inside and inbetween the outside and the inside (double-paned glass - Mel tells me that I can't make a past tense adjective, that is why "double-paned" looks so weird to me as I write it, but you know what - this is my blog and I'll make a past tense adjective AND noun if my mood so dictates. And it does! At least the glass was not double-pained. ha ha! I know, I know - it was a very short night and I'm just not really responsible for what I find hilariously funny right now...) They look fairly clean in this photo, but really, they aren't - trust me! Altho, when I think back to "the way it used to be when we first got here", they aren't as dirty as then, when you could barely see out of them. Many things have really improved a LOT.

This is Mel yesterday afternoon just before the L'viv-Kherson pulled into the L'viv train station. He had gone to buy a banana for me. This train station is very pretty, altho the front entrance is much nicer than here by the tracks.

So, there you have it - our trip to and from L'viv on the train, all mixed up together in one post. More later! About actually being in L'viv.

Oh - and when we got home today, I discovered that my blue beta fish is still alive, and my Cheyenne cat is still alive, and my plants are all still alive, and my 4 guppies are still alive and...ta da! I now have more guppies! I had no idea any were due. Cool - huh? I hope they survive the adult! There are at least 4 babies in there, all about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long.