Getting to Ukraine is not easy anymore.
Even though Kyiv would be a short flight to/from many major European cities, there is no flying into Ukraine because of the war. Simply not safe.
So, Derek and I met up in Rzeszow, Poland (probably one of the safest airports in the world due to all the Patriot missile batteries around it) and hooked up with our driver to take us to the rail station at the border town of Przemysl*.
*Side note–now Polish is a different kind of language. I will give $5 to anyone who is not Polish or Eastern European who can correctly pronounce the name of this town–but NO ONE will win it. It is pronounced what sounds to my ear like Shehmesh. But just to keep it simple (and not make fools of ourselves, we call it P Town (even though there is ZERO P sound in the actual pronunciation, though the name starts with a P). For those of you old enough to remember the old TV show Barney Miller, it reminds me of Detective Stan Wojciehowicz, who everyone just called Wojo, and who, when asked how his name was spelled, would reply, “Exactly like it sounds.”
So…P Town it is 🤪
We got to P Town a bit before the train, so we were able to walk around, grab a nice cup of coffee, and look around. It’s a lovely town. Then, we met up with our colleagues from TFA at the station and boarded our train.
The train ride in is about 10-12 hours, depending. You have to cross the border into Ukraine and go through customs on the Polish side and then customs on the Ukraine side—so two separate stops. And since there is a different rail gauge (the width of the tracks) in Ukraine (I think Stalin did that back in the day to keep German trains from easily being able to move east), you have to switch locomotives as well.
We left P Town in the evening for the overnight trip. This was good planning since this way, you can get a good night’s sleep and be up and at ’em for the first day of our visit to Kyiv. Usually, the rocking of the train (think Darius Rucker’s Southbound Train song) gets you into a nice rhythm that puts you to sleep.
However…Maybe it is just me (getting soft in my old age because usually I can sleep anywhere–and have 😉) the train kind of BOUNCED more than rocked (one of our colleagues actually got tossed out of his bunk) and sleep was harder to come by than I expected. Not the end of the world, but I probably got 3-4 hours of sleep.
It was dark so you could not see much outside, but we got to Kyiv on a beautiful spring morning and were picked up by our colleague’s driver (his name is Michael, but they call him Sting because he is Sting’s driver–showed us some very cool videos of him) who took us to our hotel to begin our visit to Ukraine.
So far, so good 👍
The train had a beautiful dining car. And the conductors and staff were very pleasant. The food was pretty good too 🙂
I was so pleasantly surprised to see this photo on the wall in the dining car. It is by Howard Buffett, who is a BIG supporter of the struggle and, if you remember, was in Erie just a week or two before on the German Marshall Fund’s Whistlestop tour of America that we sponsored.
Also in the dining car was this beautiful book. Having only recently met Howard, he has become a big inspiration to me. Someone who has everything life could offer, who could very easily sit back and enjoy his blessings. But, instead, he is committing his time and energy and money to support what he (and I) see as the battle of our lifetimes, that will determine the direction of our nation and the world. A quiet hero, who seeks no headlines or publicity. Just quietly making a difference.
A true inspiration!
Onward!
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