Let there be FRUIT!

We woke, and set off on the road. Viera and I set off on our own, giving Tyler the sign for L'viv I had made and wishing him good luck. It seems that he got so cold during the night that he was feeling sick, and thought he might have caught pneumonia! Personally, no disrespect, but I think he was suffering from a combination of cold and alcohol abuse, having gotten so ridiculously drunk the previous night. After an hour or so of no success, Viera and I decided to walk through town and try hitching from the other side (why did I not think about this? I was FAR more interested in our conversation, which ranged from personality problems to stories to experience and everything in between). On the way, we saw some fruit trees, and Viera showed me a bit about recognizing fruit (basically, seeing it on the ground, and looking up) and picking it for then and saving for later. I don't know why I've never really done this, but it makes sense and MAN is it tasty. The only disagreement we had was when a tree was growing inside someone's yard, but the branches stretched to the street. I felt it was inappropriate to 'trespass', while she had no problem with it. In the end, we skipped the cherry tree, and I thought of all of those flowers Mom picks from the 'wild'...
Following the signs for L'viv and Vinnytsia though town, I realized that I was becoming more able to read Cyrillic. The letters were making sense, and I was able to read the signs for businesses, streets, and cities. This made me feel good, as I have always felt that I am horrible at learning new languages. We got a lift on the other side of town, and soon passed friends Chris and Cliff, on our way to Vinnytsia. Viera conversed with our ride in Slovak/Ukrainian, while I smiled and listened. She had begun teaching me basic Slovak, so I practiced the words she had written down for me. We were treated to local treats (coffee, a poppy-seed pastry and a caramel pastry), and then given a bit of a tour, ending up at Werewolf, the WWII German forward base for the invasion of Ukraine.
Attempting to hitch out of Vinnystia, we soon saw three Russians whom we had met at the gathering. I gave hugs to each, forgetting any of their names, and they set off, after telling us they had just walked completely across the city. We did not see them get picked up, but when we walked back to where they had been a little while later, they were gone. Soon Cliff and Chris joined us, their driver nearly hitting me (scaring me intentionally). Apparently he was an old Russian hitch-hiker, and when he got out of the car he was smiling, so I laughed. The four of us went for hot-dogs (I paid for everyone by accident, a whopping 36 krivna, or around $4.50), and soon we were back on the road. Chris expressed a desire to skip Rainbow and simply return to Cluj (Romania), and so Cliff joined Viera and I on our quest to L'viv. Viera and I were still joking with eachother, and quite quickly Cliff joined in, with tickling, poking, sign-whacking, and plenty of other shenanigans as we walked down the road hitching as we went. No sooner had we found a suitable place to camp, then a driver pulled over with space for three, and so we met Tanya. We got in, headed directly to L'viv.