This trip which started so terrible, with respect to meeting women, has turned out very good. But this is only because of women who live in cities other than Odesa. At the time of my previous posting, I was going to spend my final 4 days in Odesa with the gal (see part 7 and 12) that I have known for close to two years who comes in from another town to be with me.
But the high IQ gal (see part 9 and 12) who also came in from another town kept insisting that she wanted to return to spend more time with me. And I wanted to be with her also. So, I got my plane tickets changed and stayed in Odesa an additional 4 days in Odesa with her as she made the overnight trip on train back and forth to be with me again. We had a quite wonderful time and I am thinking she is going to be my main gal for a visit this fall.
However, my final days with the first gal mentioned above were the best we have ever had. And after she left she has sent me some of the best messages ever, so this is getting really tough.
Altogether I was in Odesa for 35 days on this trip getting back to USA on 15 June. The city I liked OK. The women who live in Odesa are a big question mark. Interestingly, I was reading in a tour book that "Odesites are incorrigible jokesters, smooth talkers, and . . . . a little shifty." A generalization I realize, but maybe there is something to it.
Surprisingly, the buildings for the Opera, Philharmonia, and the collection in the main museum are superior to their counterparts in Kyiv. This is odd since most money usually goes to the capital cities. And this was just not my observation. The Kyiv ladies admitted this, even though they hated to say it.
My trip back from Odesa was about the worst I have experienced in all my travels.
I was traveling on LOT, my first experience with them. I had read some horror tales about LOT, but then I have read horror stories about all airlines.
Anyway, they were late taking off and landing for each leg of the trip. This didn't matter until it was time for me to fly on another airline for my final leg. LOT was 1 and a half hours late leaving Warsaw going to Chicago. No sweat I thought, as other airlines have usually made up that much time in the air on the transatlantic flights. But the LOT pilots never made up one minute of time. I guess the airline had done some calculations to determine that the extra fuel used in turning on the afterburners (or whatever) would cost more than putting us up in hotels in Chicago because of missed flights.
LOT agents were waiting for us as we came through customs in Chicago and had already booked about 50 of us into hotels. This didn't hurt me too much since I had nothing scheduled for the next few days, but I felt for those who had meetings that would be missed etc.
