PEROGIES!!!!!!!! or whatever they call them...

Hello hello,
We are just killing some time before we go and get some snacks for the 2 day ferry ride (its not a cruise tyson!!!!) Anyways, we woke up and packed up our stuff and then headed for some breakfast/lunch at this cafeteria type thing in the mall which actually serves really good food and fresh. (Tyson: would like to note that he probably packed his pack the best ever today! and Sara said that she too packed her pack really well! How proud we are) Although as well as they might be packed, there still damn heavy!!! Anyways.. back to brunch, we were about to pay as we had the usual, chocolate crossionts, rice, fruit salad, tyson had some pork thing, juice and then out of the corner of Tysons eye he spots perogies or whatever they call them here. So we had to get some even if we really didn't know what was inside them. However it did turn out to be potatoe and it was very good! So now we can at least say we had perogies or whatever they call them in the Ukraine!!!!

I whipped out my birthday present to wear today as i am sick of wearing the same clothes and we need to do laundry again, probably for the last time before we come home seeing as in 9 days we will be just wearing our bathing suites.. or nothing at all hahahhaha... nude beach? Just kidding.. maybe. Right well my birthday present is a ukranian soccer jersey and it looks lovely on me.

Odessa is nice. It is a resort town not only for tourists but for the Ukrainians as well. The black sea was nice and refreshing very salty, and i now have one very pink thigh from not seeing the sun in a long time.

Birthday was good, wierd not having it at home, but none the less i still got spoiled with an arrangement of goodies such as a new toothbrush (hey its a big deal when you have been away from home), some new lotion, again big deal for real , tanning lotion, new headphones, the 7th harry potter , and a ukranian soccer jersey. So yes it was a good birthday and we had pizza and cake with a candle on it. Although i am very unpleased that the only person from my family to wish me a happy birthday was my mother! Ahem?!?!?!

Kiev was good, not very touristy which was nice, just roamed the streets and stumpled upon things as we were still recovering from whatever hit us. Seem to be going good now so far.. as 3 weeks approach us.. crazy! We saw alot of churchs in Kiev .. there are so many at one point there was 400 hundred.. pretty intense. We saw the huge statue of a lady that is like the mother of Ukraine it was pretty massive and we had to climb about 100000000 stairs to reach her.. i was not impressed. Stairs suck! We found the best cheese crosionts that we have ever had in the entire world.. sooo good.. we miss them already.. everymorning for breakfast i would send Tyson to go get some while i stayed in bed... it was great.. they were light and fluffy yet cheesy. We also found the best popscicles that we eat about 2 a day.. soo good and they are less fattening then ice cream and they cool you off.

Tyson would like to elaborate about the train ride from kiev. Basically we had no idea that we had 3rd class but we knew something was up because the tickets were really cheap. 10 bucks a peice cheap. Anyways we went to get on and the asshole train guy started saying something to us in Russian/Ukrainian and we didn't know so we said.. passports? because usually they want to see those.. he looked over to this other guy and said something to him.. and then grabbed our tickets and pointed to the seats as if to say, "are you stupid?" So right from the get go we had a bad vibe. The berth was uncomfortable as hell.. no padding against your back and there is no fresh air or air circulation. We were able to sit on the bottom bunks for about 2 stops and then this girl and her mother got on. Her mom wanted to lie down right away so there was one bottom bunk gone, and then the daughter also wanted her bunk which is fair they paid for those, so up we crawled into our coffin.. thats about how we felt because you literally had to army crawl to get up so you wouldn't hit your head on the roof.. i felt so claustrophobic and so uncomfortable. We stayed up there for a couple of hours and then finally had enough and went back to the bottom bunk to eat our snacks of cucumber, chips, juice, and m&m's as well as some bread type thing. The lady accross from us i think felt bad for us because she gave us 2 pears as to say.. "you poor starving travellers" s Tyson peeled the cumbers expertly on the moving train, and then he peeled the pears. Sleeping sucked.. the lights didnt go out till 11:30 pm which then we were rudely awoken by the train asshole at 3:30 am who then mocked us for chaining our packs up and then proceeded to take a picture of it from his cell phone.. i wanted to punch him because he was laughing and pointing and it was 3:30 am and i really don't need to be mocked especially that early in the morning. So we got up and took our sheets off and rolled up our bedding.. i went to go return the sheets and the freaking train asshole again stared at me and then started counting the sheets as to make sure i didn't steal any.. what a jerk! We have never had our sheets counted before im sure he didn't count anybody elses. Also i had to go to the bathroom once we got on the train and he said no it was closed.. and then i kept seeing people going down the hall .. so i went there myself and there was another bathroom there and he didn't even point me to that direction.. GRRRRR!!!Also he aksed everyone else if they wanted coffee or tea in the morning.. but not us... what a i can't even explain it.. all i wanted to do was trip him as he walked by us everytime! And thats the train story. I hope we dont have to take any more trains we have taken a lot in the last couple of weeks.

Yesterday after spending the better part of the day at the beach and Sara getting a little sun burnt.. You know wanting to get that deep dark tan and ending up pink instead. I applied the SPF 30 liberally and didn't require a layer of Aloe in the evening. Sara said and she is right that only one of her legs was hit badly. After leaving the beach we made our way past the sights of Odessa before finding a place for dinner. The Opera house was under reconstruction like almost all historic places it seems. The most famous place here are these stairs that lead down to the harbour from the town. They were a scene of a bloody masicure sometime in the past. When we got to the bottom of the steps we thought there was a strike on because there was all these buses lined up with guys holding flags. As we climbed the steps throught the sea of blue flags and blue cardboard hats we started to think more and more of a political rally. Not that beeing from Canada we've ever seen a really big political rally, but it looked like one. Knowing a little Ukrainian political history from the news over christmas this wasn't all that surprising. When we got to the top of the steps the square was filled with people all wearing blue and every second person carried a flag. Once we fought our way through the crowd definetly not a mob, only a crowd we watched for a while the people gathering. There was so many of them, all ages, all in blue. We decided to leave before anything really happened, and had to fight our way thought masses of blue clad people who were making there way to the square. We were both so surprised at the turnout and the conviction of the people, it scared us a little. Didn't want to forget that story, so had to write it down against Sara's wishes, she wants to go pick out which flavour of potato chips to take on the ferry with us.

Well we should get going now..time to go buy some snacks and then head to the ferry.
See you all in Istanbul.

Sara and Tyson