Sun 9th Aug - We are off!

SUNDAY

Drove up to DH's parents on Sat night and expected to get a few hours sleep, but it wouldn't come. Dozed for half an hour when alarm started screaming. DH's dad kindly gave us lift to Heathrow airport.

Queues not too bad, but even arriving with nearly and hour & half to spare we had to go straight to departure lounge and onto plane. Flight on time. Austrian Airlines, breakfast 1 croissant....!

Arrived in Vienna on time and began to have sense of adventure beyond the total exhaustion! Felt the need to experience Austria so had Strudel and Sacha Torte in airport cafe. Bought perfume and touch eclat for DH's bags. Horrified to find flight to Lviv on Toy-Town plane that didn't respond well to turbulance. Convinced going to die on landing. Survived landing in back yard of Country house, ostensibly Lviv airport. See above. And yes, that is the airport building!!

Waited 1 hour to get through customs, to find baggage is waiting in corner of what looked like a post office. Lviv customs officers can hardly cope with tiny plane. How will they cope with Euro 2012 football fans?

NB We were warned that they would try to sell us insurance and to have our proof to hand - this did not happen to us, but worth bearing in mind just in case!

Botticelli like 15 year old taxi driver meets us and takes to apartment, embarrassing moment when we realise that the journey is not on account and we have no Ukrainian Hryvna or even Euros to pay with. DH has to run off to find a cashpoint, which he does, while I stand smiling with taxi driver and woman who is going to let us into apartment. She speaks no English (this, we were to find, is more than usual) and he does - but he's so young & pretty I am loathe to speak to him as he may think I'm chatting him up!

TIP 1: have cash in euros to pay for taxi.

DH returns with money - we pay him 90 UAH, which makes me think we are being ripped off (I later work out that it's only about £8). Apartment fantastic, lounge fitted with TV, DVD, Hi-Fi, etc. Bedroom also has TV. Kitchen well equipped. Bathroom has Whirlpool bath.

All for £35 a day.

Go out to eat at local restaurant - literally round the corner. Horrified at menu entirely in Ukrainian. For quite a while we stared at it in the forlorn hope we would understand it - we could read Cyrillic - but few words made any sense, it was like it was in a foreign language or something - doh! We eventually plucked up courage to ask waiter for an English menu and he did so! DH remembers that Landlord requires full payment and is picking it up at 9.30pm. So DH leaves after main course and comes back later, £350 lighter.

TIP 2: Get out all money for hire of apartment - you will probably be asked for it when you arrive

Back to apartment and a very heavy sleep!