After a tear stained good-bye, I hopped on the plane from Vancouver to NY… my life would never be the same again. My flight to NY was pretty uneventful … well except for my connection in Minneapolis. With the time frame of an hour I managed to go through customs, pick up my luggage, go through security and run around the airport frantically trying to find my gate with only minutes to spare. Whew! I made it. In the JFK airport I was happily reunited with my new family and we welcomed each other with open arms and weary smiles.
For 6 hours we hung about at the airport trying to amuse ourselves before our flight departed, taking us to Paris. During our layover we were shocked to discover how expensive the food was and Anmari and I settled for juice and granola bars. After another 2 an a half hour flight and some icky airplane food we arrived in Kiev, Ukraine. Yay! We made it…. not!
We then went on an hour bus ride that took us to a train station, where we found hung out for 2 hours before our train left and we made the 9 hour trek to Odessa. (We were surprised when we had to pay to go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground!)
The train ride was pretty fun after all the chaos had been sorted out. There was only one other person on the train that spoke English, Thank God for him! Brittany and I ended up being in a sleeping compartment with a Ukrainian man and woman who moved us back and forth from seat to seat dragging our bags behind us while they tried to tell us what seat was theirs and what were ours… good old language barrier! Before we climbed our way up to the top bunk, we hung out with a couple of the guys from our team and our newly made English speaking friend. After a long night of interrupted sleep, our contacts met us at the train station where we then took a short bus ride to our new home for the month.
We are staying with a lovely lady named Olga who we can’t communicate with very well unfortunately, but she is very nice from what I can tell. We have a cute little kitchen, 2 toilets, an outdoor sink, an amazing warm shower, 2 bedrooms. The area here is so beautiful!
After learning a bit about Ukrainians and their culture, finding out what were going to be doing during our stay and being taught a few key words to our survival, we were taken down to the black sea! Let me tell you, it’s gorgeous! Vendors line the way to the beach continuing down the shore, selling all kinds of goodies and treats as well as bathing suits and jewellery. On the sandy beaches there are huge blow up water slides and other fun things that make it look like some kind of amusement park. Here is a little tip from me to you. If you ever visit the black sea, make sure you go to the bathroom first or “go for a swim” while your down there, because you DO NOT want to use the public WC (water closet). Let me give you a few reasons why:
· 6 holes in the ground
· Some people missed the holes
· No stalls- yes that means no doors and only a short little wall in between each hole
· No toilet paper
· It REIKS! (Apparently that day it was extremely clean! If that’s clean, I would hate to see dirty!)
