One time in Odesa

Last weekend, I took an adventurous trip to Odesa, in Southern Ukraine along the Black Sea. Odesa, a port city, is one of the oldest cities in Ukraine. It has influences to Russia, Turkey, and Greece, as well as the expected Ukrainian. They speak mostly Russian there.
I went to Odesa on a whim. I met up with several other volunteers and we stayed there for, initially, three days.
Odesa has a lot of scenic tourist places, like the Odesa Catacombs, in which nationalistic freedom fighters hid while they waged war against the Nazi invaders. There’s also the fantastic Odesa Opera House, which has been under reconstruction for at least six years (We stood outside and enjoyed the facades). There are also the famous Potemkin Steps (Made famous by the historic film “The Battle Ship Potemkin”). The steps are famous because a revolution apparently took place at the top, at the bottom, and on the steps. As far as we could tell, however, they were just a bunch of steps. In my opinion, the Spanish Steps in Rome are more interesting.
We spent a lot of our time at the beach, because that was our true intent for a vacation to the sea. The Odesa beach is crowded. Thousands of people are cramped onto a small stretch of dirty sand. Yet, somehow, we managed to stake a claim and rented a few beach chairs. The Black Sea, especially in Odesa, isn’t very clean, so I didn’t spend too much time in the water. Plus there were a lot of jellyfish (I doubt they were the venomous variety, but I didn’t really want to get stung, one way or the other). So I lathered myself in SPF 50 and sat in the hot sun. The SPF caused me to get only the slightest tan, which was commented on upon my arrival back at my site. Ukrainians, almost as a rule, don’t use sunscreen. They just let themselves get burnt and then tanned and then burnt and so on. They still ask me “Why are you so pale? Weren’t you at the sea? It’s not healthy to be so pale.” They refer to themselves as “so tanned, they are like black people” (something that makes me shudder…), but they’re not that tanned either. Really.
Anyway, I was supposed to catch a 12-hour day train on Monday the 14th from Odesa. This wasn’t something I was looking forward to: Trains are bad enough when they are overnight and I can sleep away most of the journey. But it was the only open train before the 20th. I didn’t want (nor could I afford) to be in Odesa until the 20th. So I had my ticket for the 14th.
Before I continue, I should take us back just a bit. At the beginning of August, Shelley and I began receiving prank calls on our mobile phones. At first we just complained about it to one another, and then Shelley said “It’s probably the same person”. We compared numbers. It was the same person. It was a young lady who would call and say things like “potato” or “chicken” in English. She usually called after one in the morning. I called this young lady back and asked her why she had my number. She replied (in Russian), “I found it.” I asked her if she also had found Shelley’s number, to which she replied, “Yes”. I told her to stop calling me, she asked why, and I replied, “Because I told you to. Now stop calling.” Then I hung up. She called the next day. And the next. Shelley wasn’t sure where the young lady had gotten our numbers, but she thought the girl was from her town. Then a second number joined in. And a third. All three continued to call both Shelley and I. At this point, I was no longer answering my phone for these numbers (who have been recorded under the names “Don’t Answer”, “Hang Up”, and “Ignore It”). But I don’t like to turn my phone off at night, in case I need to answer an important call. So I was suffering through it.
Back to Odesa. The three pranksters were calling my number with a vengeance on the night before I needed to catch my day train, and so I turned my phone completely off. Turning the phone off, however, caused my phone’s alarm to also be turned off.
My train left at 10am. I woke up a little after 10:30am.
So I took the alternative mode of transportation, which is a bus. The only open bus from Odesa to L’viv left on the 16th, cost twice as much, and was at least 16 hours.
It was a “wonderful” ride. The bus had air conditioning, but the driver refused to turn it on (and yet he didn’t turn the vents off, so we had warm air blowing on us). After half an hour, the bus pulled over to the side of the road. Why? So that people could get out and go to the bathroom or smoke.
I was sitting behind a group of five Italians who spoke no Ukrainian or Russian, but spoke a little English. They mostly just spoke Italian. Loudly. I had switched seats with the sister of a young mother so that they could sit together and take care of their one year old charge. I didn’t really have a problem with that, since I didn’t really want to sit next to a bawling infant the whole ride. My new seat partner, however, claimed that his was the seat next to the window (it wasn’t) and then opened the curtains wide, regardless of the fact that the sun was pouring in on the two of us and making it even hotter inside the bus. He later would insist that I drink some of the tomato juice that he bought. Owing to the fact that it was warm (and I don’t really care for tomato juice) I turned him down.
An hour or so into the trip, the driver realized that we hadn’t opened the roof vents. We did so then. It ventilated the bus and made everything much cooler (which was a great improvement, since I had all but sweated through my t-shirt).
Two hours in, we made another stop on the side of the road. I assumed it was another toilet stop, but then I noticed most of the male passengers were gathering near the rear of the outside of the bus. So I got out.
The bus had broken down. The driver and his partner (they take turns on the long drives) were taking apart the engine. The rest of the men were standing around mumbling. The Italians asked me if this sort of thing usually happens in Ukraine. I told them that I usually take the train.
Our driver flagged down semi after semi. I think he was looking for a spare part. I don’t know if he ever got it.
We remained parked on the side of the highway for over an hour. Finally, the driver and his partner put everything back into the engine (I didn’t see them actually do anything other than add buckets of water to the radiator). They asked us all to get on the bus and we took off. We didn’t make any more unscheduled stops.
It was a horribly uncomfortable ride. The Italian in front of me reclined his chair, but the woman behind me would not let me recline mine, so I was stuck with zero room. My seatmate had taken to curling up in the fetal position and took up about half of my seat as well. A young boy, several seats up, was playing music on his mobile phone. Someone was snoring really loudly. I think I slept for about three hours.
Upon arriving home, I slept the rest of the day (I arrived home at about noon). I woke up the next morning with aches, cramps, diarrhea and a fever. The fever switched from chills and back throughout the day. I drank a lot of water and ate a lot of toast. My fever hit a high of 101.6. I talked to my fellow English teachers about it and they said that a lot of people get dysentery from Odesa and the Black Sea. Several of my traveling companions were also suffering from fever and diarrhea.
I’m better now. Really. The fever broke the next night and my bowels got back on track shortly thereafter. I don’t think I’ll go back to Odesa.