i love odessa.

Last week I taught Monday and Wednesday, taught ELE Tuesday and Wednesday, and hopped on a train with my group Wednesday night and was in Odessa Thursday morning. We had our first vacation!!! We had so much fun at the Black Sea!

I rode on a train for the first time. It was so cool! It was a sleeper train, so we had little bunk beds. Cherish, Alexis, and I were in a cart together with a random guy named Sergey. Our few Russian lessons came in handy when asking his name! At first when we got on we had tons of energy, but then we crashed. I slept surprisingly well for being on a moving/jerking train.

We stayed in a hostel in Odessa and at first we thought it was really sketchy, but once we got inside the hostel it was actually really nice. All twelve of us were in the same room on bunk beds, which might not sound very good, but it was a lot of fun! We liked being together. Or at least I liked being with everyone.

Thursday I got in the Black Sea for the first time! It was so cold. But I went in to about my knees. It was an absolutely gorgeous walk to the sea. It was a really long walk. But I am so glad that we walked it.

Later we met up with the other girls and went to a Mexican restaurant. I had been craving Mexican so I was really glad we got to go do that. I was super sad when we didn’t get chips and salsa when we got there, but that’s okay. Oh and that’s when I learned that restaurants take FOREVER to get your order and get your food out to you. And when I say forever I mean forever.

We had some delicious food while we were in Odessa. I ate like a major fat kid. It was bad. They had delicious everything. I spent too much money on food. It was bad. The good thing is we walked everywhere so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Friday we walked around the city and saw some great things. While we were walking around I found some great presents to take back to my family. It is so hard shopping for the people I’m taking things back to. I have so many options and I don’t know what they would rather have! Anyway, that night we went to the ballet! We saw Sleeping beauty. The opera house was beautiful. I can’t even put into words how pretty it was. I wish the pictures could do it justice, but they just don’t. The ballet was really great. We then went to an apartment of a friend and had apple crisp, brownies, and ice cream! It was the first time I’ve had brownies since I’ve been here. It was amazing. I was so happy.

Saturday we went to the beach and this time I went all the way in! It was pretty cold when I first started wading in the water, but then Samantha and I counted to three and went under! A bunch of us were out in the water and we ended up swimming for quite some time. It was so fun. After we finished swimming, Cherish, Hanna, Erika, and I all left to go back to the hostel to shower.

We got back to the hostel and had a dance party since we missed our Friday dance party. Our group came back and we went out for pizza! After pizza, we split into two groups of six and my group was taking pictures in a gazebo and these women came up to us and started speaking in Russian, then they realized we spoke English, so one of them said “Five minutes, crazy fun!” so of course we couldn’t refuse that! All of us went over there and joined the game and we didn’t know what was happening but then we caught on to what was happening so we actually did pretty well with the game. We were laughing the entire time.

After the game, we went out venturing for ice cream, in the process of that I got beat up with a giant ice cream cone. It was hilarious. A drunken guy picked up the giant ice cream cone that normally sits outside of the ice cream stands, and I’m guessing he was trying to steal it. But we were laughing at him and he saw us, so he came at me and he swung the cone at me. If I wouldn’t have ducked he totally would have hit me.

We got our ice cream from McDonalds. Original, I know. But the McFlurries here are to die for. I don’t know what they put in them, but they are different from at home. It’s ice cream, chocolate sauce, and then like a heath bar or nuts or something like that. It is soooo good.

Then we walked the city and Hanna found a Segway. She rode it around and got to check that off her bucket list! Alisha and Cherish found an alligator man and they got to hold the alligator! We eventually met up with the rest of our group and tried to find a karaoke bar. That was a fail. So we made our own music in the park in the gazebo.

The fairy tale came to an end on Sunday. It was so depressing. One of the girls twisted her ankle on the way to the train and Samantha, Taia, Erika, and I helped to carry her to the train station. We felt so bad. She was in so much pain. She is feeling much better now though. We had a great time on the train though. Ya know when you’re stuck in a small area for a long time while travelling and you go crazy? Yeah that was how we were. Nine of us were all in the same cart playing games, and I’m pretty sure the game wasn’t as hilarious as we thought it was. Well, there were some parts to the game that are still hilarious, but we were all a little out of it. Nine hours on a train is interesting.

Now I’m back in Kiev and back to reality. So fun. Just kidding. I really do like teaching these kids. It can get exhausting, but I have fun.

And by the way, Odessa is amazing. Everyone should go there. Not even kidding. I’ve never really heard anyone say that they want to go to Odessa, but now I just want to go back. I could definitely go back and live there