Sunday – Odessa, Ukraine

We’ve had a little trouble with internet connections over the last couple of days; yesterday, we were disappointed not to find free Wi-fi in Varna. Later, when we came to upload and update all our stuff, on board ship, we found we couldn’t because the internet was off… grrrrrrrrr!

This meant the first job this morning, before doing anything (but after breakfast), was to update the blog. While I did this, Tracey went for a walk around deck. When I’d finished, she was keen to show me something; over the side of the ship we looked, and there, in the water around the Black Watch, and stretching right across the bay, were hundreds, if not thousands, of jelly-fish.

Once we’d got our stuff together, we headed ashore to see what Odessa is like.

The first thing visitors are faced with is a huge flight of stone steps – apparently known as the official entrance to the city, at the top of which is a busy square with a statue of some Ukrainian famous person. I was the first to reach the top of the steps a-huffing and a-puffing, and as I caught my breath, a bloke with a large bird on his arm approached me.

By bird, I mean a golden eagle. It was beautiful, and quite large, and I soon realised that the chap was trying to encourage me to let it sit on my arm. I commended him on what a beautiful bird of prey he had tethered to his wrist, but pointed out (knowing that all he really wanted from me was money), as forcibly as I could without seeming rude, that I had no cash on me, so he was wasting his time. The chap was rather insistent, though, and practically forced his eagle upon me….

This, I have no problem with; I don’t have a bird phobia, and the experience was a new one. What I did have a problem with was what happened next…

He started saying to me; “3 dollars”. I said “No”. He reiterated his request, and then Tracey arrived. I was still trying to shake  the first bloke off, when one of his mates, also wielding a whopping great Golden Eagle, plonked one on Tracey’s shoulder. If that wasn’t enough, a third guy, with a similar, fine-looking eagle went and thrust one onto Tracey’s other shoulder. They were fair queuing up; I swear, if Tracey had had three shoulders, they would have gone for it. Both of us pointed out, it has to be said, quite vociferously, that neither of us had any change; local currency here is the Ukrainian something-or-other, and all we had was a 20 euro note.

“10 euros!”, they started to say.

“10 euros?!!! get out of here…. NO!”

Anyway, to cut a long argument short, this went on for a few heated minutes. Because Tracey had had two eagles on her shoulder, they wanted 10 euros – 5 euros each. I asked him if he understood me, and when he nodded and said yes, I said that perhaps they should check with visitors whether they have any money or not before forcing their eagles onto them – and that they should perhaps say what the price is, per eagle if needs be, BEFOREHAND! Then they started getting all aggravated, saying that this was their job (I’m an artist, I thought… don’t talk to me about working and not getting paid for it!). We insisted that the most we would pay was 5 euros; for our 20 euro note, we expected 150 of their local Ukrainian whatever in return…

The exchange grew quite heated, and only came to a conclusion when they finally accepted that they were not going to get a penny more out of me… 10 euros for holding a golden eagle? No way!! It wasn’t until I started to walk away saying that they weren’t getting anything at all that the change, they hitherto claimed not to have, suddenly started appearing. We did get some good photos of them, and I even managed to get some video footage of Tracey, resplendent (and slightly bemused) with an eagle on each shoulder… for that, though, we figured 5 euros was plenty….

Anyway…

Once the aggro was over, we proceeded to check out Odessa, and were highly impressed. It was a shame that we’d had to deal with the altercation over the eagles, but the day definitely got better after that. The city is bursting with beautiful architecture, a magnificent opera house, some lovely parks, and a cathedral that would have put Varna’s Cathedral to shame. Being Sunday, we were worried that today would be another of those days visiting a place that’s basically closed, but were pleased to discover a city vibrant and alive with visitors. Statues abound in all directions, and outside the cathedral was a small craft market that, despite all my attempts to veer Tracey away from it, made a small amount of money out of us.

After returning to the ship for lunch, we went back out into the city to check out a couple of places that we’d noticed on the map and couldn’t squeeze in earlier, on the grounds of not wanting to miss anything. These included something called the Mother-in-Law bridge, which was  a modern, metal-framed footbridge high above the harbour, where couples in their masses had attached padlocks to it with their names on… all very romantic, and quite sweet!

Back at the terminal, we made use of the free wi-fi for as long as we could before it inexplicably went off and didn’t come back again. I was hoping to upload this from the quayside, while drinking a beer, but instead, it’s coming coming to you via the Black Watch Wi-Fi… ahh well.

This evening was Tropical Night; out came the flowery shirts and skirts, and the show company performed a collection of tropically-based set-pieces, from Ricky Martin to the Banana Boat Song… all very entertaining and uplifting (and, it has to be said; a very tight and professional performance)…. Finished the evening up in the Lido Lounge listening to the resident musicians… crikey, there’s some quality talent on this ship…