Thanksgiving extravaganza

It started off as a simple invitation from my girlfriend Megan; “Why don’t you come spend Thanksgiving with some of my friends in Odessa?” and turned into one of the cooler things I have done while here in Ukraine.
The trip started off with a 2 ½ hour bus ride from Lugansk to Donetsk on Wednesday the 26th of November, through the pouring rain. This was an inauspicious start, seeing as I was headed to my first ever Champions League soccer game between Shakteur Donetsk (Ukraine) and FC Basil (Switzerland.) I rolled into Donetsk just as the rain was finishing… there I met up with Megan and we headed into the city to meet up with some other volunteers who live in or around Donetsk. We had some dinner, and at 9:45 were walking through the gates of the Donetsk soccer stadium. Probably most of you don’t know this, but going to a Champions League game has been on my top 10 list of things to do in my life for about 5 years, so this was a big deal for me… the stadium was only 1/3 full, due to both teams being towards the bottom of the rankings and the weather beings o miserable. But, over the 90 minute game, with the temperature hovering around 35 degrees, rain for only 10 minutes, and 5 goals scored… all by Donetsk Shakteur, the team I was supporting. It was a blowout, but even more fun because due to a misunderstanding by the person buying the tickets, we were supposed to sit in the first row but got to sit only 5 rows up, high enough to see everything but low enough to hear the players talking too.
Thursday morning was spent walking around Donetsk, as I had never been there before. Its about Ukraine’s 5th largest city, so even though the weather was a little chilly, it was fun to walk through the parks and eat some good, greasy burgers at a local fast food-chain. At 5pm Megan and I jumped on a train to begin our 16 hour journey down to Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port on the Black Sea. Again, I had never been there and I was very excited.
We entered the beautiful Odessa train station at around 9am and set out to try to find an apartment, because we were going to spend the night with one of Megan’s friends and her brother and dad. Finding an apartment in Ukraine is often much different than anywhere else I have ever been. There is the option of booking on-line in many cities, but the much more popular approach is to immediately be set upon by about 5 babushkas (older women/grandmothers) asking if you need an apartment, how big, how much you want to pay, etc. Now, I am definitely used to new experiences, but I was extremely thankful Megan was with me (as my sister so gracefully put it when on the phone with me, “She sounds smart…” and yes, she is, her Russian is excellent) to take over the entire negotiations. After the first failed attempt when we set out with a woman only to find 5 minutes later that the apartment wasn’t ready after all, we met up with some other volunteers who were waiting at a bus stop to head to the tiny village where Megan and I would head the next day for Thanksgiving dinner. We (as in Megan) eventually found an apartment that was big enough for a very good price, and after a quick shower we headed out to explore the sights, and to fix Megan’s Falafel needs. She suggested sharing one as we would eat lunch with her friend in about an hour, but seeing how good they looked I denied. 10 minutes later, after ingesting what seemed to be about 5 pounds of potatoes, falafel, tortilla, and mixed vegetables, I thought I might pass out and explode at the same time… it was excellent though. We headed to Potemkin’s steps, one of the most famous sites in Odessa (which is famed for its port, red-light district, and its nightlife) and then headed to meet Megan’s friend.
That night we were able to get tickets to another soccer game between Odessa and a different Donetsk team. The Donetsk team was supposedly much better, but Odessa played well, and with it also being the last game at the stadium before it was rebuilt, the fans got a little carried away and started ripping chairs off the benches and setting flares on fire (it felt like a real European soccer game at this point) and when Odessa won 2-1, almost the entire stadium flooded the field and started having a party! Very cool.
Saturday morning we jumped on a bus to go to a volunteer’s site who lives about 2 hours away from Odessa, but we had to take one bus, and then a taxi to get to her very, very isolated site. It was really cool pulling up in the taxi after driving through farmland and seeing a bunch of our friends chopping wood, cooking in the summer kitchen, and just hanging out. The rest of the afternoon we chopped wood for the girl’s two fireplaces, helped begin the Thanksgiving feast, and just catch up with people we hadn’t seen in a while. We eventually headed out to play some American football on the remains of a soccer field, and we took care to miss the cow pies and not hit the geese that were waddling nearby. As there were only 8 people playing, we were soon exhausted and ready to head back and get ready for dinner.
The feast was begun around 7 pm, and consisted of a turkey (donated by the next door neighbors and killed the day before) cranberries, mashed potatoes, amazing stuffing created from mixes sent from America, gravy, delicious pumpkin bread, and I’m sure a few more things I am currently forgetting. For having limited means to buy American goods, it was a truly amazing dinner. I think the highlight of it was when we all went around (including the host’s next door Ukrainian neighbors,) and said what we were thankful for. It showed me how important family traditions are, how proud we all were to be Americans, and how close you can become to your ‘Peace Corps family.’
The night was spent playing some hotly contested charades between the men and women… lots of fun!
Megan and I got up the next day and with a few others started to head back to Odessa to catch our train around 3pm. At about 10:45 Megan had called a cab, and after a while a old-looking car pulled up and said he was our taxi-driver. The guy was a little crazy and it was a little unnerving when he would turn around to talk to us in the back seat. We arrived at the town were we needed to catch a bus with no problems, but then sat there for an hour due to few buses on Sundays. We were a little worried that we might miss our train, but after our 2 hour ride back to Odessa (passing through Moldova for about 10 minutes) we arrived with an hour to spare, at the wrong bus station….
We had been told this might happen so weren’t too nervous, but jumped on a bus that got us to the train station with 20 minutes left. I headed to buy a bunch of waters and Megan went to get us some food for the 17 hour train ride back (why it slower on the way back, I don’t know…) We were able to play a lot of cribbage (a game Megan has excelled at and now beats me regularly) and gin rummy. Arrived in Donetsk this morning and hopped on yet another bus back to Lugansk.
With about 46 hours travel time to and from, it was still a wonderful Thanksgiving, and definitely won’t forget it! Hope your holiday weekends were as memorable! Miss you all.
With love,
Seth
p.s. will try to add photos soon