FUCK ORPHANS

COSTS

Shave, with electric razor, 30 HAU

Giant schwarma (a burrito like thing with chicken and miscellaneous stuff) and a bottle of beer, 30 HAU



ORPHANS

With a great deal of help from the locals, I managed to find the orphange. It is well hidden. Naturally, they had only a fairly rough degree of English. They had never heard of front page hostel. Additionally, the kids were all in school. I was also told the kids had no interest in speaking English. I'm not seeing any real reason to stick around.

I did get invited by a couple of girls I met up with while searching for the hostel for drinks. They ended up not being home later. Doh.



THREE MASTED SHIP

In the harbor, they had a three masted ship. In this age of motor driven boats, that's a rare thing. I saw what appeared to be a seaman smoking on the pier next to the gang plank. Smoking is an easy in. Soon, I got myself invited onto the ship and introduced around. The ship seems to have sat around for too many years. Hence, the students of the maritime academy get the pleasure (well, are forced) to work on the boat for stints of one month long The total amount of money needed to refurbish the boat is about one million dollars US. In other words, I don't think it will get done any time soon. If it was able to sail and I spoke Russian, I think the crew was friendly enough that I'd have gotten to go sailing. As it was, they assigned me two English speaking tour guides and was told I could go anywhere I wanted. The only exception to that turned out to be the control cabin. That was only because the captain had the keys and wasn't on the ship. I'd have liked to get some pictures of the controls.

Also, the officer in charge gave me a big picture of the boat. I didn't try to tell him I was living out of a backpack so I gave it to the hostel to keep.



SERGEY - PART 2

A different Sergey I talked to on a different day is studying international management and getting ready for exams which start on Monday.

Here's what I found out from him:

The best thing in Odessa is the language - it's a mix of Russian and Ukrainian as well as special 'Odessa worlds'. the language came from a district that had a mix of people living there and was made famous by a writer named Smirnoff - like the vodka.

Also, tourists say Odessa has the friendliest people and prettiest girls in the Ukraine. And the port.

The biggest challenge - the tourist season is only mid May to mid September.

I had asked about the corruption problem and he said that was a previous USSR thing.



GEORGIA

Here's some info I got from Sergey on Georgia:

They love their culture.
A lot of national pride.
Very friendly.



FOR MY FOREIGN READERS

This is a stairmaster.