A Day in Transit

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Odessa, Ukraine

Can you believe it?  We were in three countries in one day!

We had to get up at the beautiful Bucharest Hilton at 2:45 am to catch our flight to Budapest.  This is the best hotel we have ever stayed in, located in the heart of the city and we got there late and had to depart early!  Originally, Malev Airlines (Hungary) had scheduled us a midmorning departure and a change of planes to Odessa, but we were notified a day early that our 10:30 flight had been canceled and the only other one available left at 5:35 am (ugh). 

On our way to airport Sunday morning, we sighted many young couples walking home, hand in hand, from a Saturday night on the town.  We were just beginning our day.

Arriving at Bucharest airport early Donna attempted to district the desk clerk while our luggage was weighed, hoping that neither bag went over its 20 kg limit.  We were right on the money, again as we were wearing and carrying everything we had that was heavy,  In the departure area we were surprised to see a large group of soldiers, wearing American uniforms.  We chatted with a few and found out they were on their way back from Iraq.  One even lived near us.

We boarded a small turboprop for our 90 minute flight to Hungary. 

Travel rule:  Trying to use the restroom in a small turboprop when you stand six feet tall is a good lesson in contortionism.

Arriving in Budapest airport, we were made to again to pass through security before we were allowed in the transit terminal.  We now had a wait of nearly seven hours before boarding our 90 minute flight east to Odessa.  What to do?

Sometimes things work out better than planned.  We found a table next to an electrical outlet and fired up our Dell Vostro laptop.  We discovered we had a wi-fi signal and it was free!  This has been the best connection we have had on our trip and were able to catch up on everything we had put off for the last month, including pictures, blogs and email.  We even had some time to surf the web.

Photo attached:  Donna blogging away at Budapest airport

Boarding our Malev jet for Odessa at about 1:00, we were pleased to be flying a Boeing 737.  Descending over Odessa, we spotted a wide river delta below us and the Black Sea in the distance.  Landing was an experience!  Perhaps Odessa’s runway was paved at one time.  Maybe Lenin ordered it. We fortunately were all wearing our seat belts or we would have been sitting with the pilot within ten seconds.  We were able to walk away, so it was a good landing after all.

As we landed, Donna had an emotional connection to this land of her ancestors. Locating the homeland of her grandparents has been something that she has been unable to do up until recently. All of her grandparents came from the area once part of the former Soviet Union but they all left during the progroms at the start of the twentieth century or face the atrocities due to their Jewish religion from the Tsar’s regime and cruelty toward her people. Those that were able to make the trip to America and survive those times soon were to face the Nazis and probable death in the camps so she is happy that she was able to find where at least one of her grandparents emigrated from in escape. She recently learned that her father’s father was born about 100 miles north of Odessa so that was the reason for this few day side trip. A personal contact given by American friends lead to numerous emails in the area with a woman named Natalya.

We checked into the Black Sea Hotel, in a busy, but not upscale, section of Odessa.  The city’s famous market is located right next to our hotel  We took a short walk through the busy neighborhood where we bought a few beverages at a local store and exchanged some dollars for the Ukrainian currency we have nicknamed the “kropotkin.”  Odessa is quite a beautiful, busy cosmopolitan city, which, except for the lack of hills, reminds us of San Francisco.  There are many young, busy people on the streets at all times of the day and night.

We had a nice dinner of traditional Russian food at a local café and turned in early. We are both trying to figure out the details of the Cyrillic alphabet, but are getting better each day.