Market!

These are pictures of the market near the train station. It's very big and it's well known here. Everytime we come, we see something different. They sell everything you could think of here.  Everything is so neatly arranged and organized inside the different little shops.  They put it all up and take it down every day.  It opens around 7 a.m. and closes around 6 p.m.

 This vendor has LOTS of dried fruits.

This is a dried goods vendor.

The bottom two pictures is what I saw first, the outside part of the market.  The inside part of the market are in the other two pictures. 

The aroma that filled the air when I rounded to corner.. WOW!  It smelled alot like Lawry's Seasoned Salt but with 10 times the power.  I just had to take a picture of this outside spice vendor.  While we were there, the wind was so strong that it made their large umbrella's covering peel away from the spokes.  It was too tall for me to reach.  My husband reached over and helped with such ease.

Gold Child

This is the sculpture "Gold Child." This is a sculpture that is known by the people in Odessa as "Baby Odessa."  Odessa is considered to be a young city in Ukraine.  It sits at the port of Odessa here.  It can be shocking to unexpecting visitors to be greeted with this.

Yum! Pan-Pizza Restaurant

This is where we went yesterday.  It was such a beautiful day out.  It definitely has a European feel in this country.  It is obvious that everyone loves to be outside here.  With the trees, and wonderful shade, I can't say that I would blame them much. There are many beautiful days here.  We sat outside to enjoy our meal.

I heard some noise behind us and there was the cook behind us outside cooking. 

Below you will see the flowers that were on our table.  If you look closely, you will see that we had a visitor for lunch.

Beside us in a raised bed were beautiful flowers.

Here's the entree we shared.  It was chicken breast stuffed with cheese and spinach.  Our selected side was savory rice and vegetables.

Below is the spinach salad.  It had vinegar, oil, and salt for the dressing. Here, you will see spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, sliced boiled eggs, and sliced green onions. It was very good.

Here's the dessert.  This was like an apple custard yet tastes like bread pudding.  It was yummy!

Mexican Food

We broke down and went to a Mexican Restaurant here.  We have been SO spoiled in the States.  There are no refills of chips and salsa here.  Everything you get extra, you pay extra.

Below, you will find the beans, pico, sour cream and hiding underneath, some cheese.  The other side is what they said was guacamole.  It is not guacamole as I know it.  This version is made of egg yolk, maybe some milk, dill weed.

The tortillas were fresh and warm.  

The fajitas were really tasty.  I enjoyed them.

Black Sea Photos

In these pictures, you will see these huge cement walls.  Many people just jump off these bulkheads to go swimming.  If you look closely, you can see people on them in these pictures.

The Pathway to the Black Sea

This is the path to the Black Sea.  This is very close to Camp Viktoria where our girl is staying until we get the papers we need from court.  I love these wide walking pathways here.  The trees here are like an awning above as you walk. It's so beautiful.


Below, you will see pictures from the fork in the road after the tree lined awning.  If you face one way, you will see one of the views.  If you face the other, you will see the other view.

Two Story McDonald's

This is the top floor of the McDonald's that our little one considers his favorite eating place.  He has become a Happy Meal Kid!  Oh no!

Empress Katherine the Great

These are pictures I took when exploring Odessa.  I was told that Katherine the Great was a founder of Odessa.  Although there are only three shown here, there are actually four men under her statue.

Exploring

This is the monument of Duke de Richelieu.   Right at the base of this monument, you can see the Potemkin steps.  All 192 of them. 

If you look at the top of the steps, you can see the monument.  We took the tram that was beside these steps.  Sporting a stroller with a 40 pound boy in there, we were REALLY grateful that this had finished being reconstructed.  We climbed into what seemed to be an elevator and watched it take us up. Below you will see a picture of what it looks like when we are inside the elevator and we're going up.

A Different Kind of Snow

There was a different kind of snow on this day.  It was snowing these fluffy dandelion looking seeds everywhere.  It really looked like snow.  If you kept your mouth open too long, you might ingest some!  It encouraged many people to take their cellphone conversations indoors.  We were told that allergy sufferers didn't far well when it was snowing like this.  We all sported some kind of headache for a few days after this.

We tried to capture the image of them.  The wind was blowing so hard so it was difficult to capture.  If you look at all the white specks, you will see a different kind of snow.

Trees trees trees

Here's the trunk of an old tree here.

I love to stop and look up at the leaves when I am walking.  It's easy to get mesmerized by the beauty of the sun shining through.

Milk and Butter

This is how milk comes here.  There is bottled milk available here, but you have to be careful of the content.  There's vodka in some of the bottled milk here!

Here's the butter. No sticks of butter here!  This is shaped like a large bar of soap.

Very TALL Tree

If you look at the base of the tree, you will see our girl.  This tree is over 110 feet tall!  These trees are EVERYWHERE here.

Mass Transportation

There's many forms of mass transportation here.  It's really nice to be able to walk a ways and then hop on a form of mass transportation.  You either find a seat early, or squeeze in like sardines in a can with standing room only.  It is not unusual to find 31 people in a bus that seats only 18 people.  That's including the driver!  No seat belts here!  Just hang onto a rail or a seat close by for dear life!

This is inside of one of the buses.  It was described to me that it is cheaper to buy a cargo van from Europe and have it shipped here.  From there, they bolt as many seats as they can fit inside of it.  This one is one of the buses that my husband's knees are jammed against the seat in front of him just to sit down.

More Vendors

This was on the way to the orphanage.  This fellow was selling balloons at the street corner.

Coolest stroller

This has got to be the coolest stroller on the planet.  Look at it!  It is a tricycle with a push bar on the back and a little covering for the kid's head.  I saw one little boy peddling away and falling asleep in one of these.  (What do you do with a kid who falls asleep at the wheel? That's the only drawback that I could think about with these.)

Outside Cafe Eating

This is where we ate today for lunch.  It was alot of fun eating outside.  After this, we walked to the orphanage.

This is the view from our table.  I love eating outside when the weather is so cool and the day is so beautiful.

This sandwich was made in a unique way.  The bun was cut into three slices.  Between the top and the middle slice, was a type of savory salad with cabbage, oil, vinegar, dill, dill pickle, parsley that was on top of lettuce.  The bottom layer was ketchup and finely chopped onions on the bread, then the chicken.  This was really yummy!  This sandwich cost about $1.14.  Even our little one got one!  He loved it!

 What was really neat is that we met someone who was willing to give us her phone number so she can help us with translations.  She said she needed to practice her English.  The people here are so sweet!

City Garden - Just beautiful!

This is where it is on the Odessa City map.

This is just a gorgeous place to visit here.  The park was filled with little children, strollers, mothers and grandparents the morning I took this picture.  This gazebo is HUGE!

Herre is the roof of the gazebo.  It's just gorgeous to me.

If you look on the far left by the lampstand, you will see the lioness.  On the far right, you see the lion.   My husband and I thought it was quite romantic having them in this park facing each other.

Here's the lion who has just dominated his prey which appears to be a wild boar.

Here's a closer view of the lioness with one of her cubs showing here below her.