Odessa

This past weekend, seventeen of us volunteers went to visit Odessa. Four new French volunteers who spoke very little English or Russian (three adults and one son), many new British high school girls, two Dutch, and two Americans all of college age. The trip was pretty full. We left Chisinau at about 10:00pm on Friday night and drove through the night, spending nearly an hour at the border of Ukraine. After almost seven hours of driving, we finally pulled up to our parking spot at the beach of the Black Sea. Nobody got a good amount of sleep on the bus, but everybody was glad to be out of the bus and on the beach. So much so that almost everybody spent the first hour on the beach asleep. Though it may have been very early (5:00am), we were all able to get beach chairs and sit at the very foot of the water, a luxury most of the visitors who came later in the morning were unable to relish.

We spent six and a half hours there before finally deciding it was getting too hot. But even for leaving before noon, that is plenty of time to spend on the beach. We swam, we read, we slept, we swam some more, and we all got a lot of sun. So the hotel didn't sound like such a bad idea. We stayed at the hotel 'Passage' in the center of Odessa and had an hour and a half to shower and relax before lunch, which we were all looking forward to because of the lack of breakfast that morning. It was also at a cafeteria-type cafe where we were able to stack as much food as we could on our plate at pretty cheap prices. The second great sign of Odessa after the beech. After lunch, the general consensus was to go back to the hotel and relax until our excursions at five, but the two Dutch and myself found ourselves walking around the city instead of spending our only afternoon in Odessa asleep in the hotel.

Finally, around five o'clock, we all met for an excursion to the port and a boat tour. We passed the Odessa Opera House and the Potemkin Staircase on our way to the port, but having already taken a boat tour in Kiev, the two Dutch and I decided to forgo the watery road and look around the city some more. It was a great decision because I was able to go back up the staircase and get my picture taken with a beautiful crocodile. Afterwards was a delicious dinner at a pizza place called 'Zara' where we spent nearly three enjoyable hours. I ran into some other Americans as we were leaving, some older gentlemen (very drunk) from Alabama and Connecticut. They didn't have much to say other than hello and that I need to go to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (since I told them I was from Ohio). And after that we headed back to the hotel.

The next morning consisted of buying snacks for the ride back, which started at 12:00pm this time, and buying some souvenirs at the market. It was a short trip, but I loved Odessa. The difference between Kiev and Odessa reminded me a great deal of the differences between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Odessa has older, palace-like buildings still lining its streets and is much smaller and seemingly friendlier than Kiev. The atmosphere was great and I will definitely plan on revisiting Odessa in the future.