Trip to Odessa

Monday, April 16th:

Today I made my way from my village to Chisinau in the morning. I wondered around during the day. I wanted to get a hair cut, but everything was closed because of Easter. I relaxed at Peace Corps in the Peace Corps volunteer lounge for a while until I needed to leave to catch my 10pm bus. The bus arrived in Odessa at about three in the morning. The bus ride itself didn't take very long, but going through customs took about 20 minutes, if not slightly more. When I got to Odessa, I checked into my hostel in the center of town. 

Tuesday, April 17th, 

After going to bed at about 4am, I woke up at about 10:30 and walked around the city. I first got lunch at a restaurant near my hotel and then headed to the beach. Since I didn't know where it was exactly, I just headed downhill. The first thing I found was the port of Odessa. I then walked along another road that followed the water, but was higher up. Eventually, I found the beach and a way down to it. When I reached the beach, I saw a dolphin place near it and went inside first. Inside, I saw some dolphins in a tank. I didn't stay for the show. Afterwards, I walked along the beach for a little while. Then, I walked up hill again and made my way back to my hostel. On the way, I walked through a park that had fitness equipment and ultimately took a trolley-bus the rest of the way back. 

One of the first things when I left my hostel was a church.

The door was impressively large and had Eastern Orthodox Easter eggs on it

The Cyrillic says hristos voskres and voistinu voskres. I think they translate to "Christ has Risen" and "Indeed, he has risen"

When I was walking to the beach, I passed by a park with a gazebo and a fountain in it. 

This building was next to the park and I liked the architecture. 

I saw this statue while I was walking along one of the main streets in Odessa. 

This statue was at the end of the street. The street was named for him.

This is the entrance to the port of Odessa. I guess you can take ships from here to other places. There were also a lot of cranes and container ships. 

As I was walking along the coast trying to find the beach, I saw a wall with this tower attached. 

I walked a little bit away from the wall so I could take a picture of the whole thing. In the middle is a Roman helmet. I think it was graffiti. 

As I was walking along I took the opportunity to take a picture of the docks and container ships. 

On my walk, I had some nice views of the black see. In the distance was a container ship . 

Afterwards, I walked a little further and found a big park with an obelisk in it. 

There were some pictures on it that  I took a closer picture of. 

When I finally found the beach, I also found this dolphin place. 

Outside was a giant dolphin. Inside were some tanks, a large one with dolphins and others with fish. 

This was the beach in Odessa. 

I walked along it and saw buildings and stores ahead. A lot of them were closed, but I am sure the whole area is much busier in the summer. 

By the water, it was windy. 

I saw this interesting rock right before I decided to head away from the beach. The yellow rock is part of a restaurant. 

 After I passed the park with the sports equipment, I went further uphill and walked by some other interesting buildings.

One building I saw was used for something political. The label in front was in Ukrainian and I couldn't understand all of it. 

 Afterwards, I walked through another park. This one was long and narrow. At the end of it, I saw a statue of Catherine the great. The architecture around it was interesting. 

                                                                                                     

  The photos above show how a lot of the buildings in Odessa look. 

My day ended with dinner at a Japanese/Thai place and returning to the hostel to read a book and go to sleep. 

Wednesday, April 18th:

On Wednesday my first top was the archaeology museum in Odessa close to the building with the Pushkin bust in front of it. Then I went to the central market called "Privos" It was very large and contained everything from food to hardware supplies. My next stop was a terrarium I saw near by. It contained snakes, fish, turtles, frogs and lizards. I heard that there was a zoo nearby so that is where I went to next. I maybe spent about thirty minutes there since it wasn't very large. After the zoo, I walked back to the park with the fountain and reviewed my Russian flashcards. It was a warm day so it was nice to sit outside. Afterwards I went back to the hostel, relaxed and then went out to dinner. I ate dinner at a place called pusata hata which is basically a nice cafeteria with good but inexpensive food. I got a sausage, a chicken cutlet, and a apple pancake for about 30 grivna (4 dollars). For dessert I stopped at a Baskin Robbins. Every once in a while it is nice to go to American places since there are only two in Moldova (McDonalds and Sbarro). Below are some pictures from the post-soviet zoo. 

It was nice to see a camel there since I still haven't seen one outside of a zoo. 

 It is hard to tell in this small picture, but the bird is an owl. The sign said what kind, but it was all in Ukrainian so I didn't understand. 

The zoo was a lot simpler than zoos in the US. It consisted of two long rows of pens, with a couple in the middle. 

There were also some benches along both sides. 

This is another of the birds I saw. Most of the animals in the zoo were birds. 

More birds. 

A squirrel, maybe a red squirrel. I took a picture because it was not a grey one. 

I zoomed in to take a close-up. 

The fountain was very nice. 

On both sides of the pathway into the center of the park were two lions. This one on the left.

And this one, on the right. 

Thursday, April 19th

I didn't have much I needed to do on Thursday. The first thing I did was to walk to the bus station to buy my ticket back to Chisinau. I then walked back to the park and read for a little while. I then went back to the hostel to relax and read before my trip to the catacombs. The hostel has a person that they contact when guests want to tour the catacombs. The hostel worker called him on Wednesday night and set up a tour for five the following night. The guides are Odessans who know the catacombs and speak English reasonably well. I ended up going with two other people that were staying at the hostel. We took a bus to a village about 45 minutes from Odessa. The guides then showed us to the entrance of the catacombs. I wouldn't have known the entrance was there if the guides hadn't shown it to us. There was also a museum near it, but it was closed when we arrived. The catacombs were narrow and dark. We all wore headlamps so we could see. Mine was not very good so I mostly saw where I was going using the light of the person in front of me. One interesting thing was that both guides did not know all the words they needed in English so they would ask each other for help when they got stuck. I tried to understand what they were saying when they spoke Russian to each other. When we got back to Odessa, we had dinner from a falafel place. The falafel was very good. After falafel, we went back to the hostel. I checked my e-mail and then read some more. I was trying to finish Slaughter House Five because I found a copy at the hostel and got pretty far in it. I ended up finishing it on the bus on the way back to Chisinau. Because the catacombs were dark, I only have a couple of pictures, but they are below. 

There was a lot of writing on the walls in the catacombs. 

Most of the catacomb halls were narrow, but this was a little wider. Since it was dark, I had to use the flash. 

Friday, April 20th

I left the hostel I was staying at at 9:15 and took a taxi to the bus station. The driver went to the wrong one first, because I told him the wrong place. There are apparently two words for bus station in Russian, but in Odessa they refer to different places. I did not know that until the taxi driver took me to the wrong one. When I got to the bus station, I found my bus and got on. It was a maxi-taxi/rutiera/ Marshurtka instead of a proper bus. The drive back to Chisinau took longer than the drive to Odessa, but it was nice to see southern Moldova in the day time. I spent Friday night at the hostel in Chisinau and then returned to my village on Saturday afternoon. I took a bus instead of a maxi-taxi. Even though I was alone, I had a really nice trip. I imagine Odessa would be even more fun in the summer when one can go to the beach and actually go swimming. I look forward to my trip to Greece with my family in June. Just about 6 weeks left. 

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