Day 8 - Last day/flight home

восьмий день - суботy, 16 жовтня (8th day - Saturday, October 16)

On our last day before leaving for home, I had a few things I wanted to see. We had an afternoon flight to Warsaw (2 hour layover) before heading back to New York. The first thing on my agenda was to climb the city hall clock tower and take some panoramic photos of the city. It was foggy, but I wanted to go anyway. So after breakfast, we walked over to City Hall to climb the 300+ steps up to the observation deck.

Lion statue outside of City Hall

Leaning on a lion

Entrance to City Hall

Dad in front of a stained glass window inside of City Hall

The photos didn't turn out so well on account of the overcast conditions, but it was a nice view nonetheless. I also tried to take photos of the clock mechanism, but the light was bad and it was behind a glass window, so the photos didn't come out at all. I'm not posting them.

View from the tower

Market Square houses

graffiti on the railing

Entrance sign leading to the tower staircase

Next, we checked out the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts, which is located in a beautiful building next to the Grand Hotel. They had a nice collection of 19th and early 20th century artifacts and housewares, and some Secessionist-style furniture. There was also a special exhibit of posters by Czech Art Nouveau master Alfons Mucha.

Poster advertising the Mucha exhibit

Museum of Ethnography and Crafts

At 12:30, we met up with our driver Oleh and headed to the airport for the short flight to Warsaw. I bought a souvenir bottle of horilka at the duty-free shop and put it in my carry on (since we'd already checked our bags), but the security officer in Warsaw tossed it. It somehow didn't occur to me that we'd have to go through security and customs again.
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I wrote the draft of this journal entry while waiting at Chopin airport during our layover, hoping to reflect back on the trip in general. But I was pretty excited to get home, so I will have a final entry. I do hope to return again someday, but until then, I must say "Прощання з України."