Arriving in Odessa

Arrival:

We are finally in Odessa at 3:15 pm local time, after a full day of travel. We watched our Polish planed get loaded with stuff (with some difficulty) which is why we took off about an hour late, which of course had me already nervous, because we only had an hour and a half before our connecting flight from Warsaw.

The flight was fine; the food sucked, but at least we’d had beer and hamburgers before we boarded. I conked out almost immediately, which was like 8 pm EST, but I slept for a good 5 hours. Dad, I think, slept very little. I woke up in time to read a little and watch Poland come into view, and experience the worst landing of all time, short of crashing. The American woman next to us was positive the plane was going to tip over during the landing, and I can’t blame her. The overhead compartments sprung open, but the people clapped and were positively thrilled. No wonder they thought nothing of us pulling out of the gate in NY before everyone was even seated. The plane to Odessa was much smaller (again, we sat in the LAST row) and we took a bus and a ladder to get on and off the plane.

When we landed in Odessa, we both were looking out the window. I turned to Dad and asked, “Do you want to cry a little bit?” And he said “no,” but I swear tears were welling in his eyes. And then we joked about what a bitch customs was going to be and laughed. We got our bags (I saw them from customs, before we could reach them, and Dad could hardly believe me), and into the country with no problem.

People drive like maniacs here and it was a really entertaining and somewhat thrilling ride to the center of the city, where this apartment is. Its big and rather ugly, but the location is great. Dad is exchanging money and does not yet know what the Ukrainian money is called.