Getting to Odessa

There was a little drama on Tuesday night. When Rostek came home late from work, I showed him my ticket. His first reaction was "This ticket says you leave from Borispol Airport, not from Central Bus Station" So there was a panic mode. Then we realized that the bus originated at the airport but would pick me up at the Central Bus Station at 7:30. So, a lot of drama and no little amount of panic over nothing. My ticket was fine. I tried to get to bed but it was after 10 before I was packed and ready to go. I got up at 4:45, took a shower, and set out around 5:30. My backpack and duffel bag were heavy. I walked the kilometer to the metro station, rode to the exchange station, took a different line to the Central Bus Station. I got there around 6:40 for a 7:30 bus. I went over to McDonald's for a cappuccino. About 10 minutes before departure time, I tried to find my bus. I knew it was supposed to be at Berth 6. Of course the berths were not numbered. I saw that one bus had a sign "Odessa" on the window, so I showed my ticket and it was the right bus. We left on time. The entire 550 kilometers was on good roads and through magnificent farm country. During the Soviet era, Ukraine was the "breadbasket" of the USSR. The produce here is wonderful and fresh. It actually has Wegman's beat hands down. 7 hours after leaving Kiev, I arrived in Odessa. It was a thrlll to see the Black Sea as we came down a hill into the city. Florin was at the bus station to meet me, having arrived Wednesday evening. We went to the hotel and then out to have lunch. Florin is fascinated by Eastern European Jewish history and we went to a restaurant next to a synagogue. We drank Ukrainian beer. I had mushroom soup and chicken curry. Florin had fish soup and vareniki. We had no room for dessert but walked back to the hotel. I lay down for an hour while Florin went shoe shopping. In the evening we went out to walk around and see the area, a beautiful area with interesting buildings. We will walk again today and I will take pictures. The whole time we are talking and planning for the weekend's workshop in Nikolaev and Florin has valuable insights about content for my workshops at the end of the month at a national conference. I think it was midnight before we finally slept. While we were sitting at an outside cafe, eating yet again (borsch and pizza), a woman gave us her card: interpreter, apartment agent, cosmetics seller. We suspected by the way she walked up and down the street that she was selling other more personal services as well. Because we ate so close to bedtime, I had nightmares. Really disturbing nightmares. I awoke at about 7 and went back to sleep and resumed the nightmare where it left off. I finally got up at 9 and showered. Florin slept a bit later and we went out in search of breakfast. The first place we went into had no breakfast. It was a sushi restaurant. It is very odd that there seem to be sushi restaurants on every block! We finally found an outside table at another place a few blocks from our hotel. Florin had breakfast vareniki with sour cream and honey. I had oatmeal with walnuts, golden raisins and apricots we each had two cups of cappuccino. Very satisfying. I think tomorrow morning I will have the same breakfast. This afternoon, actually it is already afternoon, we will go out to tour and perhaps to meet with an activist here. I will blog more later and perhaps post some pictures.