Yes, Beautiful Tropical Ukraine!! Odessa is known as the pearl of the Black Sea, and it deserves its moniker…

While it is more than a little distance from my normal Tropical vacations, Odessa, Ukraine, actually is quite a tropical location. Palm trees, warm breezes off the warm Black Sea waters, and skimpy bathing gear as far as the eye can see. No wonder all the Leaders and Ranking Military of the USSR had their Dachas here….

Why Ukraine? Firstly, because I’d never been there. Never even been that side of the “Pond”, as the British put it. It is something new that I wanted to see. Second, I like to combine my love of the tropics with another love of mine, History. Yes, that capitol H is intentional. I enjoy seeing, reading, and being historical. (Some friends might change that spelling to hysterical, but that is another story altogether.

Here in the US, we have some History, but most of it is not much more than 250 years old. Ukraine has churches that are a thousand years old. The catacombs under Odessa are older than that.

So, a good place to go if you like History.

Before I set out, I thought I should do my best to try to learn at least some of the local language. At least how to find a restaurant, or even a bathroom. What I found after arriving is that the worst part of visiting Ukraine isn’t any difficulty communicating. The people are friendly,  and if you have any Russian language skills at all, (can you say Da? ) they will nearly fall over themselves trying to show you their English skills, (whether they have any or not!! )  🙂

As I live on the west coast of the US, the flight was long. Very long. I didn’t want to spend too much of my vacation on a plane so I paid for a one stop flight, with as short a layover as I could get. In so doing, I also had to take off from a Major international airport. (For some reason we don’t have many international departures at the airport here in southern Oregon.) So, I drove to San Francisco. I could have paid for a flight to get there in just over an hour, but I figured I would save money and have more to spend when I got to Ukraine. (Note to self: Next time calculate parking fee!!) The parking fee for the 10 days I left my truck at SFO would have covered the flight from home to San Fran……

At least my first flight was only 16 hours. From SFO to Istanbul, Turkey. Then a short layover, and a hop to Odessa. Total travel time, just  under 20 hours. Not too bad for a trip just about halfway around the world. And I flew Turkish Air. I didn’t even know there was a Turkish airlines, but the service was good, the seats comfortable, and lots of movies and games on the seatback video console for entertainment.

Next? Finally arriving in Odessa…..