American's First Impressions of UKRAINE | Lviv

I love brunch. What's up, Pea Nation? Today is another gorgeous day in Lviv, Ukraine, and today we're going to... All of the churches! So apparently there's a lot of old architecture here, it's one of the more renaissance cities in Ukraine, so we're going to go explore all the churches and try all of the food. Yes! Okay, and we have made it to our first church. I think we're going to go to this church and then have brunch. It's going to be awesome because we are super hungry right now, but this church is called... Bernardin Church and Monastery. Apparently it's famed just because it's kind of in the center here, and it has a very Baroque interior. That's beautiful. I don't know if we can use the word, like, gaudy for a church, but compared to the Orthodox churches we saw in Bulgaria and Romania, these are definitely more ornate, if that's how you want to say it. Yes. But just like, gaudy is the word that's coming to my mind. Everything has gold-painted something on it, the altars are huge, and that's what's really cool. I've never experienced a church that has so many different altars. You know, you can pray directly to Jesus, or Mother Mary, or Archangel Michael, or Saint Nick, you know? It was very interesting because people were praying to specific people. Yes. We are here at brunch! We saw a lady making pierogies, or like, some dumpling-type thing in the window, and so we definitely had to stop by this place. They're calling it something different, though. It's like, veraniki? Veraniki? I don't really know. We ordered, like, four entrees because we were super hungry since we didn't eat anything yesterday on our long bus ride. It's about to be amazing. So good. Okay, so first we got this green onion toast with pork fat on it, and then we got borscht, which came in a, like, clay pot. What is going on? This is, like, a lot different than the borscht we've had in Poland. It has, like, actual, like, chunks of stuff in it, but, like, the borscht in Poland was just, like, clear broth. This looks so good. This is better. Now we have the veraniki. We've got chicken and potatoes, cabbage rolls, and potato pancakes, and they all come with sour cream. We haven't had sour cream since we left America. So a very popular item here is just pork fat. We have a piece of, like, really rustic, maybe rye bread, pork fat, and green onions. And the flavor is interesting because you really don't taste the pork fat, but you can feel the pork fat in your mouth. It's kind of creepy, and my first bite was kind of, like, hard to swallow because I knew what I was eating. But overall, I kind of understand why they would eat it. It's good. It's not bad. It's definitely, it definitely puts some meat on your bones. That was amazing. We normally don't eat at street-side cafes, but this is one of the cheapest cities we've ever been in in Europe. And that just felt so fancy. Like, we always, like, every time we walk by a cafe that has outside seating, we're like, aww. At least I am. Yeah. But now we got to do it. And now, back to churches. This is the church we just went in. It's called Jesus Christ of the Most Holy, and you said you liked it because what? It had, like, awesome murals up on the ceiling. And it was a real shame because some of it was covered up because they might be, like, Restoring it. Yeah. Or candle smoke. Yeah. But it was very, very beautiful. So we made it to our first market, and not only is it a market, it is an antique market mostly selling books and, like, old pins and some artwork, and there's, like, old guys playing chess, and it's just really, really cute. The vibe here is just so relaxed. Like, this is where our grandparents should be hanging out. Okay, another thing that we haven't talked about since we've been in Europe is the fact that there are all these older European cars that we only see in movies. Like, we watch, well, Leah showed me this preview of Spice, Spice World? Spice World. Spice Up Your Life? Whatever it's called. And I was like, what are all these old European cars? And just, like, it's so cool to be here seeing all of them because in America we do not have any of these European cars, so it's kind of like we're walking in a movie set because all these cars weren't real, and now somehow they are. So we have been looking for this shirt, and we've just found it, but we wanted just to say that, like, Lviv is so adorable. And I think we say that about a lot of Eastern European cities because we've been, like, submerged in Eastern Europe for such a long time. But really, I mean, it is so adorable, and we've been kind of comparing it to Krakow because Krakow is, like, the cultural center of Slovakia, or excuse me, Poland. But this, Lviv, I think is, like, more the cultural center of Ukraine. I mean, it was, like, a super medieval city at one point, and then it got burned to the ground. Built in the 11th century, yeah. Yeah, they built it up in Renaissance style, and so it is just adorable. And everything is so cheap. So cheap. Like, if we stayed in the downtown part of Krakow, it would have cost, like, 80 bucks. But here, we're staying right in the middle of everything, and it costs $28. Love it. So, unfortunately, the church we were looking for is closed, but that's okay because we were just having so much fun looking around the city. It is so quaint and cute and adorable here. It is just a lot of fun. Okay, and we have made it to our last church of the day, and it's called... Verklarengskirche Lemberg. Yeah! That's what it's called. It's a Greek Catholic church, and it's very different because unlike the other churches we've been in, there's no, like, pews. It's just all standing room, which is, we've only seen that in Bulgaria. Right. And it was built in 1731. Okay, so the other market was closed. I don't really know what else there is to show you today because everything kind of closed. All the churches closed at 5.30. The market's apparently closed at 6. So, this kind of ends our day, but it's been really, really nice here. It is. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's like, I want to kind of get out there in Europe, and I don't know what I want to see or what matters. If you have, like, a certain place you want to go, this is definitely a great, cheap option on the way to a lot of places. Very inexpensive. Yeah. Like, we're going to Odessa next. Stay here to eat here. Do activities here. Yeah. I would highly recommend this to a lot of people. It's really nice. It is off the beaten path. Ukraine's, like, almost in a rush. We know it's far. It's hard to get here. We like it. Yes. We're in Lviv, Kiev, and today we're going to... Lviv, Kiev. That toast thing with brusch. Borscht.