I thought I would give you a little background for those of you who don't know me. I an am American living in Odessa, Ukraine. I am living with a Ukrainian woman I love dearly and we have plans to marry soon. She doesn't want a green card and has no interest in moving to the US. We live in the city center in an area that has everything we need... and many things we don't need.
On our block, there is: a three star hotel, a wedding chapel, a grocery store, an art gallery, an upscale Asian bistro, a 24 hour convenience store, a Hugo Boss store, a strip club, a sex shop, a BDSM club, a pharmacy, a pizza place, a karaoke restaurant and more. It's quite and interesting city.
Instead of spending too much time on the past, I just wanted to start my daily journal today:
A Day at Privoz
I woke up this morning really tired. V3 had a stuffy nose and was snoring all night long. She woke up in a good mood and got up to make breakfast and left me in bed trying to sleep. Finally, she woke me up and I hesitantly went to the breakfast table. She made kasha with milk and also some slices of gouda cheese with tomatoes (we were out of eggs, which she wanted to make). V3 asked what was wrong with me, and I told her I couldn’t sleep because of her snoring. This immediately put her in a bad mood.
Our plan for the day was to go food shopping at Privoz and also look at wedding dresses, with our eye on the future. After breakfast, she took a shower as I sat on the couch waiting for her. After she got out of the shower, she went back to bed and started playing on her phone. I was confused because I usually wait for her to finish putting on makeup, and then we get dressed at the same time when we have somewhere to go.
After about ten minutes of waiting for her, I asked if we were going to leave soon. She said “okay” and she started getting ready. I grabbed my oversized backpack and we headed out the door. We walked a few blocks and got on the trolley bus. Most of the trolley busses in Odessa are very nice… clean and modern, like something you would find in a nice American city. The ride costs only 5 UAH per person.
We entered Privoz… a very large bazaar that is a labirynth of merchants selling fish, meat, dairy products, produce, beer, electronics, clothes and shoes (mostly fake Adidas, Nike, Off White, Puma, Supreme, etc). It took a couple hours to navigate the maze to buy: homemade sour cream, potatoes, onions, greens, salo (cured pork), ground pork, pork loin, fresh grapefruit and mango juice, and sausage made from horse. By the end of the journey, my back was starting to get tired from carrying 30 pounds of food around.
As we left the bazaar, V3 started walking back to the bus stop, but I reminded her that we were going to look at wedding dresses. She told me she changed her mind this morning about looking for dresses because she was mad at me for my mood. I got angry and told her it’s not right for her to change her minds about our plans without informing me. I said it was at least worthy of a discussion. We then had an argument on the street for about five minutes, followed by total silence. Finally, she said, “Okay, let’s go”.
We walked several blocks to a street where she knew there were several wedding shops. On the way, we stopped at a second hand store, where they were selling men’s shorts for 47 UAH. I wanted something to wear around the house, but the store didn’t have anything I liked.
Finally, we got to the wedding shop area, only to find most of them had closed, most likely due to the economy. We finally found two shops, but the selection was terrible and they didn’t have anything close to what she wanted. We kept walking down the street, but everything was closed. We gave up and started walking to where we could take a mini bus home. As luck would have it, we passed by a wedding shop she didn’t know about, so we went inside.
The shop had a great selection and she picked out four dresses she liked. The prices were $450, $450, $500, and $750… alterations included. She tried on all four and we both fell in love with one immediately. We then looked at hair jewelry and veils. V3 asked me what I wanted to do. I asked her if she wanted to get the dress. She gave me an enthusiastic “yes!”, so they took her measurements and I put a deposit on the dress with cash on hand. Total cost for everything was $595.
We left the shop and jumped on the minibus… very crowded with standing room only. It costs 7 UAH per person. When we got by our flat, we decided to go out to eat at a cafe instead of eating at home, so we had pizza and beer at an outdoor pizza place a block from our house.
We went home after and watched Netflix while putting together a 2000 piece puzzle we purchased at a supermarket the previous day.
It is too difficult to post photos here, but I also posted pictures of Privoz, the pizza place and the wedding dress on a blog I started. The address is:
http://ukrainediaries.wordpress.com/If you want to comment, please do so on my thread "BB's Peanut gallery"