Day 5 -- Lviv

After breakfast we met the director/principal/professor of a special music school for particularly talented children. There are only 4 such schools in Ukraine, one for each region. We got connected with him by Bo’s friend Basia. We walked to the school, which is not far from our hote.  Levko (the director) gave us an extensive tour. The school is in a very large building from 1848. When he became the principal 5 years ago, the building was in total disrepair. Now, half of the building has been renovated, mostly because of his enthusiasm and energy. But monetary constraints of the government prevail. He even got the teachers to chip in for the only new piano the school has and for painting the walls and renovating a classroom. Art students provided some labor (painted murals). He even brought things from his house – a door, rug.  The school has 415 students grades 1^st to 11^th.   Levko is very proud of his students. He says they are very, very talented and win many competitions. He said that the school has 5 winners of the Paganini competition in Italy, more than any school in the world. After visiting the school, we went to see the palace of the Polish count Potocki, which is now a museum. After lunch we walked through the old book market where Bo spotted the book she learned to read from.  Our evening activity was the opera.  We enjoyed the Lviv production of La Traviata.  Sitting in the box next to us were 2 Polish gents from academia.  Bo had long conversations with them.  They and the music guy are hoping for grant info from Bo.  After opera we went to our favorite eatery which makes amazing strudel. We had one chicken and one sour cherry. Sour cherry strudel is definitely our absolute favorite here. We have to have it at least once a day.