I awoke at 11.30AM and the sun is streaming in, with the heat here sleep is kind of erratic, it is too hot you will drift in and out of consciousness trying to make the most of the valuable hours of darkness, we traditionally sleep with a window open and it is usually Russian roulette if you don’t get disturbed by a Lada with subwoofers or some drunk Russians navigating the still night of Odessa in fine wodka fulled aggression.
Today David is tired and i am tired, we both agree that Sunday is a lazy day for us, we spend a majority of the morning charging our devices and power banks and various electronic devices to ensure we have the power if tragedy happens to cut us off at the knees.
The most important things we own are 4 simple items
– passport & visa’s
– Credit card number 1
– Credit card number 2
– Mobile phone
If any thing bad happens (not that we plan it will ) we can do anything with the 4 life saving items.
For the next 3 hours we do a classic lazy Sunday, read books , catch up on social life and emails, during this time i have to decide my next move as my 2 week visa expires on Friday the 17th of august.
I looked into an extension but the only way for that to happen is for David to hit me in a motor car and i apply for a medical extension of the C6 tourist visa… it would cost around 100 USD and probably a claim against my insurance for medical expenses… to top that off the plan would be executed with German military precision and the “she’ll be right” approach of a layer back kiwi… the only part of my master plan i cant control is the Ukrainian medical system which ranks at about 110 on the WHO listings. For comparison NZ ranks at about 40 and Germany 20 …….that’s the plan squashed… i guess i will have to leave
I have settled on Romania, i did say that i wanted to visit the motherland while i was here in Europe so being a man of integrity i will keep my word to myself, i will fly out to Bucharest on Thursday at a lazy 4PM and arrive at 6PM local time, from there i will navigate to my hostel for 3 days, then make my next move.
After having the desk manager “Dracula” i might go up to Brasov, this is the town located next to Draculas Castle, it is located in the Transylvania mountains, i have never explored that part of the Romania so now is the time to do so.
It’s about 3PM and David was recommended Belgium Mussels restaurant called Kotelok, it is located at the eastern end of the main restaurant district past the square, this came by recommendation of a pilot David had met at a hotel, as we are dehydrating in the afternoon sun we get within about 200 meters of the restaurant and David stops and get that immediate look of panic someone gets when they suddenly realise that they have forgotten something vital to life.
I ask what’s up and he says
“ i cant remember where i put my passport?”
(He usually carry’s it)
“Okay when did you last see it”
“I’m not sure if i put it in my locker”
We agree David should go back to the Hostel to look, i will carry on to the restaurant and get a poll position for not only food but people watching.
I sit down in the outdoor area at a bar, this restaurant doesn’t have a young demographic here, it is filled with middle-aged couples, this is a clear indication that this meal will cost a bit more than the average ten dollar feast, no worry its still cheap!
I order my pint of Heineken and strike up a Philip Morris cigarette, the choice of tobacco here is fantastic, however i cant get my favourite “American Spirit” that Ben introduced me to in Tokyo, the overall quality of tobacco here is good and the cigarette are pack full of tightly interlaced organic material “heaven for a smoker”
I do need to quit 2 weeks before I return to New Zealand tho.
About 25 minutes into my chill out session David returns to the restaurant, we are listening to old Swing music on the Phonogram in the corner of the bar.
We open the menus and it is all seafood, exactly what we expected to find!
We started of with a Fish Bruschetta that was on Rye bread and had yoghurt styled salsa, this was followed by a pot of Mussels finished in a White wine sauce… as soon as the pot was placed on the table 2 barbarian hand were thrust in to the pot at a speed close to light and within 4 minutes the pot of about 70 Mussel was devoured and we licked our chops in satisfaction for 2 kings.
We sat there for a few minutes letting the gravity of our appalling table manners sink in…. we look at each other and both knew a second pot was in dire need of attacking, we hailed the waitress with German precision and efficiency, she brought over and english menu…
This time we had the Fish pate and shared it as we didn’t need 2 started, we had already serenaded our taste buds 10 minutes before.
The fish pate was good… fishy and Smokey would be the the main flavours to hit the pallets on this leg of our food adventure.
The muscle on the second time round were even better than the first, finished with garlic and Gorgonzola cheese they were literally An explosion of flavour in the mouth and the first pot was demolished in almost the same unsavoury table manners as the first with slumping and the loud smashing of empty shells hitting the pot.
The clock in the square was starting to chime 6PM and we both held our food baby’s with tender loving care realising that we might had over done the second pot by about 10 mussels each.
We grabbed the check and it came to about 1200 Hryvnia (about 75NZD) David and i always go half’s on a check so it about 30$ for me and about 18 euros for David.
As the sun starts to set upon Odessa for another day we walk back through the crowds, David in his panicked state of a misplaced passport came across a beautiful shopping courtyard called Milan, it was a beautiful area littered by small shops in a traditional Italian fashion , we took a quick photo of the area and let gravity carry us down the gradual hills back to our hostel.
When we returned i flopped on my bed and started on my book… with in 3 chapter i was out like a light and the evenings of lack of sleep had caught up with me finally…
I woke up about an hour later in a very sweat mess , i m not sure if it was the heat of the fact that i had the classic meat sweats from eating too much protein and my body was vigorously trying to decide how to deal with the influx of more calories than a small army would need, David was awake and on his bunk I ask
“Should we go out for a drink?”
“Jaaa sure if you want”
“Yea why not, i need some alcohol to settle my stomach from lunch”
“Where should we go?”
“Fraconi?”
“Okay Let’s”
We freshen up and hit the street at about 9.30 and make out way back to Fraconi, this is the restaurant we went to for drinks the day before. The Restaurant is list up but Blue lights on the outside and dimly illuminated on the inside, we cant sit outside but we opt for inside as it is drastically cooler.
We plonk ourselves down in the sofas and order some drinks my stomach is hurting still from the mussels and i decide vodka might be a safe option so i have a mojito and as the cooling liquid hits my stomach it provides a soothing relief for what i presume is a stretched stomach lining.
David has some of the lemonade again and has vouched that he needs to drink less alcohol, it probably sounds like we are raging alcoholics but we never drink more than 2 pints a day, although this is double the recommendations by the British NHS… we are on holiday so we figured swings and roundabouts were okay.
It’s bridging onto 11pm and we are watching the projector screen, it is displaying a Victoria secrets fashion show….. now as you can imagine there are women strutting there stuff on the screen and we are grinning like school boys enjoying every second of the video!.
It was late and time to call it a day, Monday is our last full day in Odessa!
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.“- Michelangelo (Italian Sculptor)
Quantum Entanglement 