Odessa

I was contemplating whether I should move to a hostel. I checked one out in the morning but the building was being renovated and I decided to stay another night at the capsule place.

I went for a walk along some of odessa’s beaches. There was a little amuzement park on the way.

It was crazy hot outside so many people opted for an afternoon beach session.

This girl came on a horse

Does the sign say ‘No pigs allowed’ ?

When I was doing my working holiday visa in Canada I met Tanya. She is from Odessa and we met up in the evening. It was good to see her again and she showed me around the city, telling me a bit about the history of Odessa and giving info about various sights. She had worked a few times as a guide so I got a little private guided tour.

This seemed to be a favorite skatespot, police don’t seem to care

After this we grabbed some dinner and her boyfriend joined us for another stroll through some parts of the city. Later Tanya and I went to a beach bar that was apparantly a new hot spot in town called ‘True Man’. They had some cover bands playing and their repertoire existed mainly out of classics from the year 2000. Mostly rock songs. Not exactly music to wake up my dancing feet but the crowd seemed to love it.
Some friends of Tanya joined as well and it was a fun ending to my first proper day in Odessa.
The next day I was invited over at Tanya’s place for lunch. She was actually packing her bags as she was leaving for a trip with her parents. She also would combine this with a hiking trip in Georgia with some members of the hiking club she is enrolled in.
They were going to hike 16 days in the Georgian mountains. Pretty hardcore stuff, carrying around 25kg on your back, hiking through the mountains. Makes my ride feel very comfortable.
In the afternoon it was time to say goodbye to Tanya. I headed back to the city where I would join a couchsurfing meeting that was going to…’tru man’, the beach place I went the day before with Tanya.
Ah well, it might be a different band playing. It was a pretty big group of people that made it to the bar. Earlier at lunch I also met one of Tanya’s friends Eliza and she also joined the cs meeting so I got to see her in the evening again.
It was a different band playing, but again covers from the year 2000, rock… Again, not something I really dance to, but again, the crowd seemed to love it.
Luckily Eliza helped me and another guy to get a cab that would take us back to our respective accomodation places. Without her help it would have been quite the challenge as Tru man is not exactly close to the city. My second Odessa day had come to an end.

My last day was spent strolling around and snapping some pictures.

This is a famous chair in town that people queue up for to have their picture taken sitting on the chair

Even the dog looks into the camera.

By the way, Ukranian girls love to pose for a camera. They make sure their hair is correctly placed on their shoulders and do all kind of model poses. It is very Ukranian. I have never witnessed this before in any other country that I travelled to.

Apparantly Odessa also like Apple so they constructed a little monument for Steve Jobs.

Not much to talk about my last day really except for the lady that sat next to me at a bench in the evening. She started talking to me in Russian and after I made clear that english would be better for me she made an effort and started having small talk. But when I decided to head of she joined me. At first she directed me to a place where lots of motorbikes were parked which was nice of her, but not really what I wanted, I just wanted to go back to my hotel. She asked if I would walk or take the tram. Well, I usually walk, but since I had the feeling she would follow me I said I would take the tram, hoping that this would put her off from tagging along. Nope, she kept walking next to me. Hmmm, this was getting really awkward. I told her ‘Me, go hotel, you?’. Well, she kind of said hotel. Then I just grabbed my phone and told her I was going to meet my friend and that she was not someone I wanted tagging along. Finally she got it and she took of. I don’t know if she was a little bit crazy or not, but I didn’t really want to find out 🙂
My time in Odessa had come to an end.