Odesa, Odessa Oblast, UkraineOur apartment in Odessa looked out on the famous city garden which sits adjacent a busy pedestrian street.
The garden is decorated with bronze sculptures of dancing children and famous people from Odessa on one side; stone sculptures of African lions the other side. Quaint restaurants surround the park’s perimeter and a beautiful fountain with matching gazebo at the innermost point form this city centre masterwork. If you look the other way Odessa’s massive Transfiguration Cathedral is a five minute walk down the street. As Elenka and I tried to decide what to dine on at our chosen garden eatery she sipped her Cosmopolitan while I swizzle-sticked my Negroni. We held hands and smiled at one another, happy to be in such a heavenly spot. Life is beautiful.
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The following morning we had to make our way to the port town of Chornomorsk so we could climb aboard the cargo ship Greifswald which would take us more than 1,300 kilometres east across the Black Sea to Batumi, Georgia. Our task was simple: take bus #242 to the central train station. From there it was just a few minutes walk to where we’d catch bus #25 which would take us to the ticket office in Chornomorsk.
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But then, the damned Irishman Murphy with his book of laws presented himself: No one speaks English anywhere near the Odessa train station. And no one understands the Latin/English alphabet either. In order to ask: “Where do we get bus # 25 to Chornomorsk?” We needed a sign that says - Де доїхати автобус № 25 до Чорноморська? We of course didn’t know that.
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We walked and tried talking to Ukrainians for better than an hour, searching for bus #25 ... just a couple of minutes from the train station. But the Ukrainians hadn’t a clue as to what we were looking for. Eventually, I had to make pee-pee. But I needed a ‘Where’s the toilet?’ sign which reads something like, “де є туалет, будь ласка?” And I didn’t have one of those either.
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I told Elenka that if we had a hand-held Google/telephone device we wouldn’t have to do this shit. That we could have used the GPS thingamajig to show us how to get from the train station to bus #25 which was only two fricking minutes away. People began staring at my red face as I explained ever so loudly that we could have even used the bloody thing to translate English to Ukrainian.
That just one simple translation and I wouldn’t have had to pee on the manicured hedge while people watched. Her response was that Google takes the adventure out of travel.
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As it turned out bus #25 was just a two minute walk from the train station. But you must walk to where the bus is. Not in circles, from here, to there, and to everywhere else. My loved one and I didn’t speak for the entire ride to the Chornomorsk, where we’d get our boarding passes.
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When we got to the ticket office we had to wait along with 20 or so other passengers until we could be loaded onto another bus and driven to the Black Sea port. By the time we got to within a stone’s throw of the ship Elenka and I were smiling and holding hands once again. But it soon became obvious that the Ukrainians didn’t want us to be that way. We, along with the other boat-people, had to stand shivering in front of the locked harbour office for better than half-an-hour. The doors eventually opened and we then had to form a line in a scary, dark hallway which led to the Customs office.
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Our fellow passengers on-board the Greifswald would be a diverse group. Three Germans; a youngish Dutch gal; a Preacher from Latvia; and an assortment of unexplainables. The scruffily dressed man in a suit who stood in front of us was grilled by a customs officer for close to thirty minutes. His luggage was searched. A security dog was brought in to give him a feet to balls sniff-over. And then his trousers were checked for wet spots. Customs has a mirror which is angled from ceiling to wall behind the person who’s being inspected. Under such scrutiny smelly, wet trousers are a tell-tale sign that the inspected ones have something to hide. The guy in front of us passed the test.
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While the Deutschers, the Dutch gal, the Latvian and Elenka and I came here for adventure, the unexplainables - refuges? secret agents? embezzlers? Roma? - are the ones who have us guessing. It would be faster and far less expensive for them to go to Georgia by automobile or airplane. So why are they here? Perhaps they’re travelling under the radar, paying large sums of money to behind-the-scene gangsters in order to get from A to B? Could the intense customs scrutiny be just a show? So many questions.
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A dozen hours into our 48 hour journey the adventurers were all out on deck experiencing the moment, while the unexplainables were inside, quietly watching television. Someone from somewhere yelled that we were passing the Crimean Peninsula, the area the Russians invaded just months ago. While fear and apprehension showed on the faces of the adventurers, the unexplainables couldn’t have cared less.
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As evening approached, Elenka and I were at the bar for a pre-dinner cocktail with our new amigo Manfred, a round-the-world bicycler from Deutschland. We weren’t there 10 minutes when a Ukrainian fellow who spoke no English sat with us and insisted on buying us vodka — one after the other after the other. Poor Elenka had a problem with the first couple, but then began to enjoy the way the satiny liquid soothed her sore throat.
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When we first arrived in Odessa we needed a map of the city so we went to the tourist information office. When the young fellow who worked there - he did speak English - found out we were Canadian his jaw dropped to his chest in awe.
He’d never encountered Canadians. There was an immediate role reversal: Elenka and I became the guides, he the seeker of information. He asked us about our cold weather. Hockey. Rob Ford. And many more forgettable questions about our home and native land. In the end, after writing some points-of-interest on a map, he thanked us and told us we both spoke very good English.
Daniel Lundborg
2019-05-08
Well, Google may take the adventure out of traveling but it also takes out the pee stains from hedge splashback :-D Lovely the hear from you as always and beutiful photos. I guess it's Ukraine for us this year as well since I apparently promised such to Sara's Ukrainian friend on New Years Eve after 10 GTs.
Jan
2019-05-08
Love your story, Живу Google перекладаю
Valerie
2019-05-08
Beautiful photos. No Russian ?
Stephz
2019-05-08
Didnt we have an email conversation about smart phone data plans and Google maps and translation apps when you were fearing for your lives in South America?
Cate
2019-05-09
.....Again great story telling Jack and of course beautiful pictures Ellen. Yes, once again Ellen is right what's the point of an adventure if you're not adventuring....I think "grabby/grumpy" (Mr JW Gould) rubbed off on you a bit......Happy to know shortly thereafter you were holding hands again and......... still feeling blessed!!