My First Trip Report

[Faux Pas]

Hammer, great trip report! The speedos are a bit much tho  

[Hammer2722]

Hey! My girl made me get them. I figured if I was going to let you all see my baby in bikini then you would also have to see me too.LOL  :rulez:

[SANDRO43]

The speedos are a bit much tho 

Lingering Puritan mentality . What's the sense of getting a tan on HALF of your legs only ?

[Smile_too]

I liked his new speedo type swimsuit...strange he did not use it before. Looks not bad. Hammer don't pay attention they just jealous they don't put on the same.

Nice full trip report. Thanks.

Just curious to know what made you think you can spend the whole life with your Olay? The vacation time is great time to enjoy the life but...did you feel you two good match?

[Aloe]

Great trip report! Love the pics. Keep it coming
And omg does that look delicious or what!!!

[Aloe]

Tell Yulia that it's a crime against humanity to not share her talents with the world!!!!! She can make a website for her recipes like this   http://www.say7.info/   that website is done just by 1 woman who likes cooking.
And, she can earn money on commercials at her website, so it's money too!

[Hammer2722]

I liked his new speedo type swimsuit...strange he did not use it before. Looks not bad. Hammer don't pay attention they just jealous they don't put on the same.

Nice full trip report. Thanks.

Just curious to know what made you think you can spend the whole life with your Olay? The vacation time is great time to enjoy the life but...did you feel you two good match?

Smile_too, thank you for the compliment. From the moment Olya and I met each other at the airport in Kiev to the day I put her on a train back to herhome city (a heartbreaking moment for us both), Olya and I just melded together like we had been together all our lives. I truely believe that I have found my soulmate but we are definitely going to take things slowly. I plan on taking her to Sharm el Shiek, Egypt for her birthday next March. I have also discussed me moving to Ukraine in the future to be with her since she has a very good living running her parents business in her home city.

Aloe, I had mentioned to Yulia she should start her own restaurant. I'm not the only who has made this suggestion to her. She is a spur of the moment type of cook. She can take any ingredients to hand and turn it into a very delicious meal.

[SANDRO43]

I liked his new speedo type swimsuit...

Ah, you're receptive to speedos . Here I am wearing them - admittedly a bit longer, but that was way back in 1948 .

[Hammer2722]

Great pic Sandro!!! Wish we could all look that good in our speedos nowadays eh? 

[Faux Pas]

Hey! My girl made me get them. I figured if I was going to let you all see my baby in bikini then you would also have to see me too.LOL  :rulez:

The punishment doesn't fit the crime 

[Hammer2722]

18 August 2010:

Up early again, I proceed with my ritual of making coffee, reading in bed and just waiting for my baby to wake up. She wakes at about 8:30 am and after coffee and eggs for breakfast, we get our gear ready for the beach.

Over the last couple of days, I have been in constant phone contact with my Austrailian friend Jamie who is currently in Lviv seeing his girlfriend. We met last December in Odessa after the lady I came to see ditched me to go to Kiev on my first day there. We have since become good friends and I invited him and his girl to take the train to Odessa and hang out with us. His girl did not want to come but Jamie did and said he had bought a train ticket to come to Odessa. He'd be leaving on Friday and would arrive Saturday morning. I told him Olya and I would meet him at the station and arrange for his own place to stay near us.

Olya and I make our way to the beach and find a nice spot right on the water line with our usual mattress and umbrella. The weather is warm today but a little cloudy. after about an hour or two, I noticed something strange in the water while I was taking a few pics of Olya in the water. There were it seemed like a lot of dead fish floating in the water. the waves were pretty strong today and they were bringing the dead fish closer and closer to the beach. As Olya gets back to her chair, I point out the fish. She tells me it is a common occurance with the Black Sea. Apparently, there are gas pockets under the floor of the Black Sea. Occasionally, these gas pockets of sulfur and other chemicals get released to the surface and any fish caught in this gas bubble are killed.

Pretty soon, there are soo many fish floating ashore that people in the water start to head for shore. I took a few pics of these dead fish. They were the uggliest fish I have ever seen before. Small bodies with big bulging eyes. I had 3 of them roll ashore next to my beach chair. We decide to head back home since the sun was not that strong out today.

We head back to the flat, shower and just relax in bed watching tv. I love spending these quiet moments with my Olya as they are the most intimate for us. We spend most of the afternoon watching tv and playing backgammon. Once again, I get schooled but I am picking up on the strategy involved in this game and am no longer getting beat so badly. LOL. Soon, I best best her I promise her. She just laughs.

We decide to take a nice afternoon nap before dinner. At about 3PM we decide to head out for dinner. I tell Olya I need to exchange some more dollars to grivna so we call a cab and head to Derib. street again for dinner. Olya also wants to still look for a present for her 10 year old son. We find a nice table outside at the Top Sandwich and order 2 beers. Olya gets a call from Yulia who happens to be in the city center with her son. We invite her to join us for dinner and she arrives about 20 minutes later. I recommend to the Pizza to Yulia and she gets one for her son. I order the personal seafood while Olya and yulia get sushi.

There are alot of people out today in the city center so we just spend the evening chatting, people watching and drinking beer. After dinner, Yulia says her goodbyes as she has to get back home and make dinner for her husband. Olya and I head for the local bookstore nearby. There is a money exchange and they also have toys there so she looks while I change more currency over. Again, she doesn't find anything hotwheels but she does buy a hotwheels card game for her son. She also buys me 2 magnets to present to me as gifts. Olya tells me she loves to collect refrigerator magnets from all over her travels. One of the magnets is of a famous Cossack hero from Ukrainian legend and the other is the Ukrainian coat of arms I believe. I thank her and tell her when I get back home, I'll send her some magnets from the US. She is really excited about this and gives me her biggist beautiful smile!!!

We catch a taxi back to the flat and spend a nice quiet evening playing backgammon and watching tv before settling into bed. My favorite time of the day. Snuggling and holding my beautiful Olya....

[SANDRO43]

There were it seemed like a lot of dead fish floating in the water. the waves were pretty strong today and they were bringing the dead fish closer and closer to the beach...I took a few pics of these dead fish. They were the uggliest fish I have ever seen before. Small bodies with big bulging eyes.

The fish in the foreground looks remarkably like the amphibious mudskipper (Periophthalmus gracilis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudskipper):

[CanadaMan]

For some strange reason Hammer your girlfriend's pics are getting 2-3 times the hits that yours are getting!   

[tim 360]

The fish kills are probably due more to eutrophician than sulphur.  Hypoxia.  Lack of oxygen in the water due to fertilizer runoff and pollution etc which robs the water of oxygen and the Black Sea is quite low with oxygen.  It used to have the biggest Dead Zone until the Gulf of Mexcio (mouth of the Mississippi) claimed the top spot.  At deeper depths Black Sea has virtually no oxygen or life.  Roman ships have been found there with no damage from worms or the usual parasites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)

[Dave13]

I would be worried if his picture was getting more hits than his Lady's!

[OlgaH]

They were the uggliest fish I have ever seen before. Small bodies with big bulging eyes.

The fish in your photos is most likely bychok  (Goby). There are more than 10 kinds of Goby in the Black Sea. According to the news the fish died because of weather heat. Plus, the Black Sea is the dirtiest sea in the World as ecologists say, and the situation is getting worse. 160 species are close to extinction because of  pollution, 70 species are already disappeared. In August 5 dolphins beached themselves near Sevastopol. 

http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sealife-dying-in-black-sea

http://www.facts.kiev.ua/archive/2010-09-01/109047/index.html

[Hammer2722]

19, 20 August 2010:

During the next 2 days, Olya and I were feeling the effects of a cold. Mine was just starting to get over but my poor baby was not feeling so hot. We went to to beach in the mornings till about 1-2 PM then shower and relax in bed watching tv, drinking hot tea and playing backgammon. I must say it was at this point that I started to beat Olya maybe once out of 4-5 games.LOL
In the evenings we would just stay in and eat whatever leftovers we had in the fridge. Olya was very good at just throwing various foods together and making a tastey meal. On Friday, I did make a trip to the market to find all of the ingredients to make spaghetti. I had promised Olya I would make her some on Saturday. I was able to get some ground beef and I found a jar of what I thought was stewed tomatoes. They ended up being quite spicey I would later discover.

It was really nice just to stay at home and just stay in bed snuggling and trying to make each other feel better. It was during these intimate evenings that I knew I wanted to be with this lady always. She felt the same way too.

Tomorrow we will be getting up early to meet my friend Jamie at the rail station and considering how we both felt, we called it an early night.

[ML]

What did you think of  the ground beef?  In my experiences there in FSU, the prepackaged ground beef is quite horrible with a lot of white gristly looking crap in it.

The only time I experienced any worthwhile was when we bought some whole pieces of good looking beef, took to apartment, and ground up ourselves.  Most of the FSU women have the hand grinders like our grandmothers used to have here in USA.

Made some great hamburgers and for spaghetti sauce also.  Funny thing is most of the FSU women think it is strange not to put some bread into the ground meat that will be used for hamburgers. They are used to preparing what they call 'cutlets' which has the bread to help hold it together, I think.

In place of hamburger buns (which I never found), use some of the large round rolls.  Cut them into about 4 slices and they work pretty good.  You also need to find some leaf or head lettuce which is as scarce as hens teeth there.  Cabbage, cabbage everywhere . . . but not a head of lettuce!!

[OlgaH]

Made some great hamburgers and for spaghetti sauce also.  Funny thing is most of the FSU women think it is strange not to put some bread into the ground meat that will be used for hamburgers. They are used to preparing what they call 'cutlets' which has the bread to help hold it together, I think.

hamburgers and cutlets are two different dishes. Added white bread helps to preserve the "juice" and makes cutlets puffy. I prefer to add some manka instead of bread. I also add eggs, some milk, onion, spices and salt. I don't fry them. I  bake them in oven with some sauce. There are many different cutlets recipes. You can make cutlets with mashed potato, carrot, pumpkin and so on.  

http://mansurovs.com/recipes/russian-cutlet-recipe

http://mansurovs.com/recipes/chicken-cutlet-recipe

Beetroot Cutlet Recipe
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art30255.asp

Russian potato-mushroom cutlet recipe
http://www.salon.com/food/recipes/2010/06/23/russian_potato_mushroom_cutlets

[Hammer2722]

21 August 2010:

Jamie's train was getting into Odessa about 9:30 AM. I woke up pretty early but just decided to lay in bed, reading my book and occasionally snuggling with my Olya til we got up and out of bed around 8:30. We took turns showering with Olya going first while I made coffee. We called a taxi and headed out to the railway station around 9 AM. One thing that has always impressed me about thr trains systems in FSU countries is that you can pretty much count on them being on time for both departures and arrivals. Only wish their airlines were just as efficient!!!

We get to the station and the fenced exit area to the side of the station. We then decide to find Jamie's train and after waiting another 5-10 minutes waiting at the end of the track where the train meets the station, I see Jamie warding off the hordes of Taxi drivers and babushkas looking to rent their rooms out.

Now a bit about Jamie. I met him back in Odessa last December when I arrived to meet my lady of interest. I was supposed to be there 16 days and spend it with her. The day I arrived in Odessa expecting her to meet me at the airport, She did not show. When I got settled into my apartment, i called her and she met me for coffee an hour later. She was very quiet the whole time and I knew something was wrong. I finally got out of her that she was leaving for Kiev with her mom for the holidays and would not be back till 3 days before I went back home.Needless to say, I was quite a bit disappointed and told her so. The next day after spending most of the day alone I ended up at Mick O'neil's Irish Pub and met Jamie at the bar. We struck up a long conversation and we ended up hanging out the whole time I was there. Now Jamie is what I would call a sex tourist. He tells me he's looking for a wife and that's what he tells all of the women he meets but to be honest, anyone who lies to all the women he meets just for sex is not really serious. Despite this, we did strike up a good friendship and have since maintained correspondence.

Afetr helping Jamie with his bags, we catch a taxi back to our flat as jamie's rental will not be availbale till after noon. Olya makes us some very nice veggie omelets. Afterwards, I ask Jamie if he wants to take a walk down to the beach and he agrees. Olya tells us she will stay home and make some phone calls to her mom and son. We walk down to the beach and just walk along the sidewalk drinking a beer as I point out the better spots on the beach to go to. We head back to the flat and wait for Jamie's flat to be available. He has a whole small 2 bedroom house all to himself right next door to our apartment complex.

At this point Olya has some bad news for me. After calling her mom, she finds out that her mom and dad are going to Bulgaria on the 27th for 2 weeks and Olya needs to be back before then to run the stores. We discuss the situation for a bit and decide that she will take the train back to Kanianets-Podilsky on Wednesday and Jamie and I will leave for Kiev the next day by train. His flight for Austrailia leaves on Friday and mine on Sunday (or so I thought!!!!). We decide to head to the train station after he gets his apt and buy our tickets. We get Olya's ticket and Jamie and I decide to but out all 4 seats in our compartment for privacy.....

[Hammer2722]

OlgaH, thanks for the links to these recipes. I am always on the lookout for them. I want to try and make many different kinds of Russian and Ukrainian dishes.
Hector

[SMS60]

Have you made plans to go back?

[Hammer2722]

Have you made plans to go back?

Oh, most definitely!!! I was originally going to spend the Christmas holidays with Olya but she says it is a very busy time for her family's business and she will be too busy working. She wants to go somewhere for her birthday in March so we are planning a trip to Sharm el Shiek, Egypt. She is very excited about this. If it all goes well, I plan on proposing to her on her birthday!!!! 

[Hammer2722]

21 August 2010 continued....

When we got back to the flat, it was time to help Jamie move into his rental. The place was right next door and only cost 53.00 per night for a 2 bedroom house. It had and full size kitchen and 2 small but nice bedrooms. We decided I was going to make the spaghetti in Jamie's place since he had a much bigger fully stocked kitchen. Olya wanted to go to the beach since it was still early in the after noon so we decided to go for a few hours. Jaimie wanted to stay behind and settle in. He also wanted to go online and find a woman to meet in Odessa.

We spent about 2-3 hours at the beach and got back about 5:30 PM. We showered and changed and went over to Jaimie's to start dinner. Jamie wanted to get some groceries first so we all headed down to grocery store and picked up some food, eggs, milk and of course beer. Jaimie is a serious drinker. I usually can't keep up with him and don't even try.

We get back to his place and I start to prepare the spaghetti while Jamie and Olya sit out back in the garden area so she can get to know Jamie. There is a nice table and chairs and the weather is perfect. I put the suace on to cook for 2-3 hours and join Olya and Jamie. We catch up on events and dink lots of beer. This is my first time trying a beer that jamie bought that he really likes. Its called lvivsky 1812 I think. It is quite good. So we just pend the evening drinking and chatting. Jaimie breaks out his professional camera and starts to take picks of Olya and me.

After a few hours, the spaghetti is done and ready to eat. Olya makes a salad while I'm cooking the noodles and we decide to eat outside since it is so nice. I must say I was surprised at how the spaghetti came out. I had to improvise with using certain herbs since I could not find Oregano, and other spices I normally use. The spaghetti actually was quite spicey due to the jar of tomatoes I bought. It was a different taste to my normal spaghetti but quite good. Olya loves spicey food and thought it was great as did Jaimie. We ate our fill and had enough left over to have lunch tomorrow. I told Olya that I always believe that spaghetti always tastes much better the second time around after it has been in the fridge overnight.

We spend the rest of the evening just chatting and drinking till 11:00 PM or so and decide to call it a day. We make arrangement to all get up early and head for the beach. Back at the flat, we play a few games of backgammon, drink some vodka and then its off to bed!

[GoodOlBoy]

If it all goes well, I plan on proposing to her on her birthday!!!! 

Great TR Hammer!
The pictures add a lot of "color" to the story.
I have a question though.
You are not planning on asking Olya to marry you (in Egypt) without meeting her family and son first?

GOB