🏡 From home to home

Goodbye class

Friday morning I had my last class. I was enjoying it, but I did have this "So this is it" feeling the entire morning. Immediately after the lesson, we had the collective graduation ceremony for four people who'd leave — including me.

In the ceremony, I got a certificate and some nice words from the teachers. Of course, the nice words were in Ukrainian and I only understood 60% of those, given my abysmal listening skills. (FYI: I just passed recordings of their speeches through a text-to-speech program. The program indeed better understood windy recordings of speeches at 5 meters distance better than I while standing right next to the source. Sigh 😒.)

I spent three weeks with teacher Sofiia, two weeks with teacher Olha. Both of them have been amazing teachers. I spent all weeks with classmate Nick, who'll also do the sixth week without me. Daan was also leaving today, so the Dutch representation would be severely depleted for the sixth week. People told us they'll really miss us — which I appreciate and do understand. Daan and I were quite the comedic crazy Dutch duo — singing Dutch birthday songs in hallways, organising dinners etc.

Welcome gifts

I didn't only depart with an official certificate and nice words. No, to my surprise, I got presents!

My teachers Olha and Sofiia gave me a bookmark, juice, Dodo Socks, candy, more candy, and even more candy (and more homework...) Lesia is a gifted artist and gave Daan and me hand-drawn cards. And Nick gave me board games with plastic sleeves to protect the cards — would you believe it? I'm very happy to have met these people and to have developed friendships so quickly.

I also got an erasable pen earlier in the week...

As you know, I brought mechanical pencils to Ukraine for everyone — which I thought were the pinnacle of technology already. Tutor Nastia asked why we didn't use erasable pens — to which we replied those don't exist: a pen is final; a pencil is erasable; that's the way of the world. We should have listened to her.

The next day, she gave Nick and me an actual erasable pen. Removing pen ink even more thoroughly than a pencil would was like magic. She said we should not cool down the paper, because the old ink would become visible again. We didn't believe her again. We should have listened to her again. Ah well — I already said I'm bad at listening 🤷.

I'm honestly flabbergasted; I didn't expect to receive these parting gifts. The gift givers can be assured their presents are being thoroughly enjoyed. Socks were worn. Candies were eaten. Juices were drunk. Game cards were sleeved. Books were marked. Дуже дякую!

Goodbye Lviv

In the afternoon, I made a final trip to Lviv's city centre, to buy some last souvenirs. Doing so after having said goodbye to the people already was really weird. I revisited streets where I walked with and without friends before, but it felt a bit lonely and ghostlike.

Still, I did my business successfully — even interacting with store keepers using my Ukrainian with training wheels!

After handing in my badges, giving final hugs, returning to my hotel, and loading up my car, the time had come to start the journey back home.

Goodbye Ukraine

At 18:00, I first picked up Yuliia. She'd join me for the first leg of the trip back home. She had an appointment in somewhere outside Ukraine, so we thought we'd cross the border together — for fun and convenience.

By 20:50 we arrived at the same border post I took when getting here, because the queue there seemed shortest. We made a little bet beforehand as to how long it would take — the loser would pay for McDonalds!

Quite early, we were taken out of the queue and resorted into a much shorter queue — a benefit of being a European Union citizen, that Yuliia gladly piggybacked on. And I was actually quite happy Yuliia joined me — we would need her language proficiencies, because we were getting really thorough inspections.

The first border guard was clearly enjoying his work. He saw the various things in my car, like Ukrainian language study books, games, a dragon. Upon seeing the Mona Lisa puzzle I bought, he exclaimed "What's this!? Art smuggling?". He asked for my profession — and I said "IT", which I learned was also the right answer to explain away my general weirdness.

They asked if I was carrying drugs, to which Yuliia said, "Drugs? To the Netherlands?" They still got a dog to sniff the car — a surprisingly small cute dachshund-like dog. A surprisingly friendly appearance for a creature that can cause a lot of trouble.

Welcome to Poland

On the Polish side of the border crossing, we had to unload the car for inspection again. I had to do this last year as well, but it remains an encumbrance to the whole journey. The sooner Ukraine can join Schengen, the better, I say.

Around 22:37 we finally left the border crossing. Our next stop was McDonalds, so Yuliia could enjoy the free snacks she earned.

A disadvantage of our border post is that it takes a long time before we reach a high way again. Yes, the scenic driving is nice, but there was no daylight anymore to really enjoy it. So around 02:00 we finally arrived at the hotel. Yuliia and I said goodbye, as she'd take a plane to her destination in the morning.

Around 09:00 I began my final stretch of the journey — and stretch of my patience. It really is not that thrilling to drive alone, away from the good memories, past endless Baustelle... Or, in fact, right into them, as I stubbornly ignored a route redirection suggestion and added 2 hours of Stau to my journey. It was somewhat ameliorated by nice scenery here and there.

Welcome home?

Around 21:30 I finally opened the door to my house again. I didn't feel at home instantly, though.

People who know me, know I'm not particularly happy in my hometown, but I still expected to feel more after being away for five weeks. I think I was still entranced by Lviv, because I was truly happy there.

That feeling seems to grow the more I visit Lviv, and the more I know the local language. It would not surprise me if I end up living there someday — for love, for work, for a second house — who knows? There's something about this place — the architecture, the people, the food, the different-but-European familiarity of it all. Still, I'm under no illusions that being a tourist is a completely different experience than being a local, so I'm not emigrating just now.

For now, I have to finish this amazing time in Lviv — with more language skills (around B1 level, it seems), more weight (to my surprise, as I lost 2kg last Summer), more friends, more experiences, more blog posts, and surprisingly fewer air raid alerts and thus more sleep. I'm so glad I decided to do this again, despite my initial doubts.

Goodbye reader

Dear reader, thank you for having joined me on this journey. I hope you found my experiences entertaining and informative. And importantly, I hope to have shown that Ukraine has so much to offer, and is worth helping so they can win the war from russia.

I already heard a lot of students talking about returning next year, so don't cancel your e-mail subscription just yet. Perhaps the third season of The Lvivy Section will report on how Ukrainians celebrate victory and EU membership?